Richard Allsop
Senior Fellow
Richard Allsop is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
When Richard began at the IPA as a Research Fellow in 2006, he focused on issues around the delivery of public transport services and infrastructure projects. He completed a study of the results of the privatisation of public transport services in Victoria and a paper on transport reform in Western Australia. Richard brought an extensive understanding of transport issues to the IPA, having been Chief of Staff to two Victorian Transport Ministers in the 1990s.
Richard also did significant work on nanny state issues, particularly in relation to gambling. In more recent years, Richard’s work at the IPA has focused on the “Foundations of Western Civilisation” program and writing about Australia’s political, cultural and intellectual history. He has written for a range of publications including The Australian, The Age and Spectator Australia, and contributed a chapter to the book, The Premiers of Victoria 1856-2006. In 2014, the IPA published Richard’s Liberalism: A Short History.
Away from the IPA, other roles Richard has held include being Media Adviser to the Federal Assistant Treasurer, a Senior Associate at Globe Communications, Director - Government Relations for The Agenda Group, and Chair of the Board of the Public Transport Ombudsman Victoria. He has co-authored two books of football history, and has worked on election night coverages for various television networks since 1990.
He has a BA (Hons) from the University of Melbourne and a PhD in history from Monash University.
6 June 2023
Advancing Australian Liberalism
David Kemp’s magnum opus imparts hope that Australian liberal democracy can adapt to tackle this century’s many challenges, writes IPA Senior Fellow Richard Allsop. David Kemp’s now complete multi-volume masterpiece is the perfect antidote to any sense of despair readers with a liberal disposition might be feeling at the state of politics and society in Australia in the 2020s. The
1 September 2022
Time To Try Freedom
David Kemp chronicles how an ascendant utopian socialism dragged Australia down, until believers in freedom regrouped and fought back, writes IPA Senior Fellow Richard Allsop. It is rare to be able to say when a task is 80 per cent complete that it is already a classic, but that is certainly the case with David Kemp’s landmark five-volume historical study
30 June 2021
Once Was Woolier
Historian Keith Hancock’s classic work from 1930, “Australia”, provides solid grounds from which to assess our nation’s past and present economic and social problems, writes Richard Allsop. In 1930, young historian W.K. Hancock published a book simply titled Australia. During the 90 subsequent years many other Australian historians have sought to explain the country in a single volume. Indeed, a
19 April 2021
Protected: Penguin The Censorship Killers
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
22 May 2020
Force for Freedom
This article from the Autumn 2020 edition of the IPA Review is written by IPA Senior Fellow Richard Allsop. Charles Moore’s magisterial authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher reaches new levels of excellence in this third and final volume. Moore faithfully charts the path to that fateful day in November 1990 when Thatcher resigned the Prime Ministership. He is always sympathetic
21 October 2019
Liberal Speaks Volumes
This article from the October 2019 IPA Review is by IPA Senior Fellow, Richard Allsop. At a March 1901 banquet in London celebrating the Federation of the Australian colonies, British Liberal Party leader Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman described Australia as “a picture of true Liberalism”. In many ways, Campbell-Bannerman was correct. From unlikely beginnings in 1788, the British Settlement of
29 April 2019
Success In Failure
An excellent biography finally provides an opportunity to fairly evaluate Billy McMahon’s legacy, argues IPA Senior Fellow Richard Allsop. An argument can be made for Saturday, 2 December, 1972, being the highpoint of Billy McMahon’s Prime Ministership. That may seem a strange thing to say about the day McMahon led the Coalition to defeat after 23 years in government, but
29 November 2018
Luther Nailed It
Historian Alex Ryrie expounds Martin Luther’s profound influence on the modern world but also explains Protestantism can’t take all the credit for the rise of tolerance and freedom, writes Richard Allsop. Without Protestants, the story of Western Civilisation in the past 500 years would have been very different. That is not to say that if Martin Luther had not nailed
1 August 2018
Secrets And Sabotage
A new Richard Nixon biography uncovers more murky behaviour by the controversial president, writes Richard Allsop. Richard Nixon has already been the subject of plenty of biographies, but his controversial career and complex character continue to appeal to new biographers. The latest is John A Farrell whose biography of Nixon has at least one striking new piece of evidence about
11 May 2018
The Politics of Curtin’s War
A new book by John Edwards explores the political life and relationships of Australia’s 14th Prime Minister, John Curtin (John Curtin’s War, Volume 1: The Coming of War in the Pacific, and Reinventing Australia) What Paul Keating said at the launch of John Curtin’s War has attracted more publicity than the contents of the book itself. The cliché is that all publicity is good
