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.
1 December 2017
The Deakin Puzzle
When Alfred Deakin quit politics in early January 1913, the initial press assessments of his contribution to public life were not particularly effusive. This even applied to The Age, the newspaper that had done so much to promote Deakin’s career. His hometown newspaper acknowledged his earlier achievements, but had not forgiven him for taking his Protectionist Party into ‘Fusion’ with traditional
23 October 2017
Reagan Rising
‘We have just witnessed the political funeral of Ronald Reagan’ opined Tom Pettit of NBC on a night in January 1980 when Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses to George Bush. It was only a narrow loss, but it was a bad one. Reagan should have had a lock on Iowa because he retained a reservoir of latent support there from
1 October 2017
Reagan’s Hope
Despite doubts about his age, intellect, and political philosophy, Ronald Reagan’s message of hope won him the presidency, writes Richard Allsop. ‘We have just witnessed the political funeral of Ronald Reagan’ opined Tom Pettit of NBC on the night in January 1980 when Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses to George Bush. It was only a narrow loss, but it was
1 June 2017
Why We Don’t Want Another Joseph Chamberlain
Britain should be worried about Theresa May seeking political inspiration from Joseph Chamberlain, writes Richard Allsop. Nick Timothy, the former Chief of Staff to UK Prime Minister Theresa May, is a big fan of Joseph Chamberlain, a major British political figure of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Timothy’s old boss also got in on the act, praising Chamberlain
1 March 2017
Power And The Passion
Paul Keating’s economic reforms put today’s poll-driven politicians to shame, writes Richard Allsop. Almost a decade ago, the IPA Review published a cover story about Paul Keating headlined ‘What we miss about Paul’. In the article, Greg Barns contended that politics in the 2000s lacked radical reformers like Margaret Thatcher, Roger Douglas, Jeff Kennett and Keating, and wished that there
1 December 2016
Exceptional Views
Australian exceptionalism is torn apart by the free market right in this stimulating collection of essays, writes Richard Allsop. One might think that there are four basic camps on the topic of Australian exceptionalism. Firstly, people can divide on whether Australia is in fact exceptional, or whether it is much like plenty of other places. Then, the pro and
24 November 2016
Wars End
This article first appeared in the November 2016 Edition of the IPA Review and is written by Senior Fellow at the IPA, Richard Allsop. In 1918, Australia played a larger role in world events than it ever had before and, perhaps, ever will.’ This is the bold conclusion of first-time author Adam Wakeling in his stimulating account of Australia’s role
1 August 2016
The Golden Age
Is the so-called political heyday really the decade that transformed the country? Writes Richard Allsop You could probably write a history of any decade in the nation’s 20th century and give it the sub-title ‘the decade that transformed Australia’. However, ascribing this title to the 1980s certainly has a ring of truth about it to those of us who have
1 April 2016
The Myth of Matheship
A history of mateship could be a history of Australia. In fact, in the years when the Old Left view of the Australian story dominated the history books, it often was. In these tales, quintessential Australians such as the shearers demonstrated their mateship by reading Henry Lawson’s poems in The Bulletin, forming a union and founding the Labor Party. The
1 April 2016
Religous Toleration and the Blueprint for Free Society
In recent years, there seems to have been an ever-increasing number of public controversies around some aspect of causing offence. From the Andrew Bolt case in Australia to the use of trigger warnings on United States campuses, there seems to be an inexorably growing trend towards prohibiting speech on the grounds that it may cause offence. What is striking about
