H. R. Nicholls Society
The HR Nicholls Society is an Australian libertarian think tank that focuses on industrial relations. It advocates full workplace deregulation, contains some Liberal MPs as members and is seen to be of the New Right. It was created in March 1986 after John Stone, Peter Costello, Barrie Purvis, and Ray Evans organised a seminar aimed at discussing the Hancock Report and other industrial matters. Regular contributors to the Society's publications have been Ray Evans, Adam Bisits and Des Moore, the Director of the Institute for Private Enterprise. Adam Bisits was the President of the Society until 2017, replacing Evans, who stepped down in 2010. The Society is named after Henry Richard Nicholls, an editor of the Hobart newspaper The Mercury, who in 1911 published an editorial criticising H. B. Higgins, then a High Court judge and President of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, accusing Higgins of behaving in a politically partisan and unjudicial manner after attacking a barrister. This led to Nicholls being prosecuted for contempt of court by the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, only to be acquitted by the full bench of the High Court. Aims and objectives The Society supports the deregulation of the Australian Industrial