Sat, 13th, Dec, 2025: Peter Kurti, Centre for Ind. Studies; Drawing The Line; Australia’s Democratic Institutions Must Manage, Not Resolve, Moral Disagreement

Nevena and Macca are joined live on the phone by Peter Kurti, Director of the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program and is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Law and Business at the University of Notre Dame Australia.

He has written extensively about issues of religion, liberty, culture and civil society in Australia, and appears frequently as a commentator on television and radio.

In addition to having written many newspaper articles, he is also the author or editor of a number of books, including The Tyranny of Tolerance: Threats to Religious Liberty in Australia; Euthanasia: Seven Questions about Voluntary Assisted Dying; Sacred & Profane: Faith and Belief in a Secular Society; and Beyond Belief: Rethinking the Voice to Parliament. Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an ordained minister in the Anglican Church of Australia.

In his most recent paper, Kurti, argues that, “that Australia’s democratic institutions must learn to manage, rather than resolve, deep moral disagreement. Building on the pluralist tradition of Isaiah Berlin, John Gray and Bernard Williams, this report contends that conflict between legitimate but incompatible values is a permanent feature of free societies. It warns against the illusion that political consensus can be achieved through neutrality, proceduralism or abstract ideals alone”.

“Liberal democracies must instead draw defensible lines — imperfect, contested, but necessary — that allow diverse groups to live together under common rules”.

https://www.cis.org.au/publication/drawing-the-line-moral-conflict-and-the-fragility-of-liberal-tolerance/

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