18 August 2016

Great news – The Queensland parliament have voted down native vegetation laws. Back in April, the IPA’s Darcy Allen explained why these laws are unnecessary red tape. Read our media release on the parliament vote here: http://ipacutredtape.org.au/media-releases/good-news-queensland-chooses-farmers-over-red-tape/

31 July 2016

The release of the new Productivity Commission draft report into the regulation of agriculture confirms that Tasmanian farmers are shackled by costly and unnecessary red tape. The report covered many issues – from the growth of strict environmental laws and rules inhibiting foreign investment to regulation of shipping – and should be used as a ready guide for where governments

28 June 2016

What is red tape really doing to the Australian economy? The IPA’s Darcy Allen explains.

20 June 2016

The Australian economy is shackled by red tape. Poorly designed and low quality red tape stifles growth, suppresses entrepreneurship and hinders our international competitiveness. Cutting red tape at all levels of government is now our only solution. However, both sides of federal politics are yet to make a clear comprehensive commitment to cut red tape. In this short paper we

10 December 2015

Cities are complex creatures in constant flux. Some cities grow and thrive, while others wither and die. A tussle between top-down regulation (by governments) and bottom-up decision-making (by individuals) makes cities difficult to plan. City planners successfully navigate these uncertain waters by accounting for future contingencies and enabling flexibility for bottom-up innovation. A radically new type of city planning focuses

5 December 2015

Tax reform would benefit by following one simple motif: don’t tax what you want more of. It follows that cutting income tax rates should be a boon for the Australian economy-freeing up labour markets, incentivising work, and stimulating entrepreneurship. If only politics were that simple. With tax reform on the agenda, and at a time when Australia faces some of

1 August 2015

When governments lavishly print money, citizens are helplessly left watching their savings erode. This is the cost of centralised government monopoly over currency. But cryptocurrencies, such as the burgeoning bitcoin, have set out to solve this problem. These new forms of ‘digital cash’ hope to revolutionise our financial system by returning the control of money to individuals. The cryptocurrency revolution

1 August 2015

Political entrepreneurs are finding ways to break the strong relationship between regulators and the industries controlling them, writes Darcy Allen, and in doing so are paving the way to a freer market   The sharing economy is a suite of emerging software platforms acting as an intermediary between private buyers and private sellers, allowing them to share their existing resources—hence,

1 May 2015

There are certain political leaders who take on an almost mythical stature. Ronald Reagan is one such leader. For many free market advocates, Reagan has become synonymous with the ideas of individual freedom, economic prosperity, and American revival. So influential is his legacy that it continues to act as a guiding force in American politics. Even President Obama, by no

1 February 2015

Are there any circumstances where ‘good’ anarchy can outperform ‘poor’ government? Peter Leeson’s new book Anarchy Unbound: Why Self-Governance Works Better Than You Think is the latest political analysis of anarchy— that is, where self-governance and private institutions are producers of order. Leeson uses empirical case studies—from orderly pirates to curse-casting monks—to explore how civil-society self-governance may be more efficient