As heirs of Western Civilisation we should give thanks for the rule of law.
More directly: we should give thanks to Justice Kennett of the Federal Court, who rejected arguments by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant that would have led to unprecedented restrictions on free speech in the digital space.
IPA Research Fellow, Margaret Chambers, writes about this rare victory for freedom in the courts on page 24. In some ways, the stakes are even bigger than free speech (vital as that is).
The famous economist and defender of freedom, Friedrich Hayek, pointed out in The Road to Serfdom way back in 1944 that the powers parliaments were increasingly delegating to unelected officials in the “administrative state”—the “fourth arm of government”—reflected a drift away from democratic accountability, but more importantly undermined the rule of law.
On the day I write this editorial, the federal government has announced that it will give Inman Grant and her successors more powers and more discretion. Hayek was very clear on this process:
If the law says that such a board or authority may do what it pleases, anything that board or authority does is legal – but its actions are certainly not subject to the Rule of Law. By giving the government unlimited powers the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable.
That is, free range agents of the administrative state like Inman Grant are a threat to the rule of law. To use the language that inspired our cover image they should be ‘reined in’, as Justice Kennett did, and our parliamentarians should do now.
Margaret and our new appointee leading the rights and freedoms program, IPA Senior Fellow Dr Andrew Bushnell, will shadow this legislation as it is debated in the parliament, where it should be overwhelmingly rejected.
This is however meant to be an editorial introducing the latest IPA Review, now into the 79th year of publication. Like me, you may also be triggered by what Bella d’Abrera described in her address to a series of launch events for Mindless across the country, which were attended by close to 1,000 people. If you didn’t hear it in person, read it now on page 8 (and/or watch it on our YouTube channel).
I was not so much triggered as I was interested and perhaps inspired by the analysis of Canada—which many hold to be just a much colder version of Australia—by our Chief Economist, Adam Creighton. Our countries hold similar economic profiles and are in charge of similarly massive acreage and resource endowments and, until recently, were subject to a very similar range of so-called ‘progressive’ manias like mass migration and net zero. Under Mark Carney, however, the centre-left government (Liberals, confusingly), has walked back both policies and is on a mission to make private investment the engine of the economy. Imagine! Well, yes, imagine if we could do that in Australia—which is the point of Adam’s article, on page 16.
To help us extirpate the residual nonsense of net zero, we have on page 40 the wonderful “Top 10” failed climate predictions, compiled by IPA Senior Fellow, Dr Kevin You.
And to help us find our way back from the more uniquely Australian morass of the Albanese Government’s productivity killing industrial relations laws, we have John Lloyd on page 48.
Having been triggered and then interested, I was then forced to stand to attention by the powerful address by Major-General Mick Ryan (Rtd.), delivered to an IPA audience earlier this year and now appearing in print for the first time on page 32. The picture he paints of our geostrategic peril—and the cultural peril of complacency—is bracing, but you should also pay attention to his conclusion that we still for the moment hold our destiny in our hands, and we need to use our hard-won freedom:
The creation of a prosperous and robust democracy in Australia stands, I believe, as a grand example of modern human achievement. It has taken struggle, creativity, the building of institutions and infrastructure, and enormous sacrifices over centuries to achieve this. To ensure the story of our nation and all democracies continues, in this century and beyond, will require similar, if not even greater efforts. We’re capable of this, we just need to decide to do it.
This sentiment is echoed—with an even more hopeful note—by Professor Timothy Lynch on page 56, who in a review of an important new book comparing autocrats and democrats, asserts that if the democracies of the West can summon their will then they will prevail, as they have before.
On page 64 we see IPA Honorary Life Member, John Roskam, reviewing Gerard Henderson’s book on Malcolm Fraser, thoughtfully examining the ambivalence many one-time supporters subsequently felt towards his prime ministership (1975-1983), and exploring why that was the case, and why the feeling became mutual.
As the co-author (with Professor Brad Bowden) of How Australia Was Made: From Ancient Greece to Modern Australia, I was chuffed to see a supportive review from Alexander Voltz, a fine young man I met when he attended the IPA Academy earlier this year.
Finally, I share with my associate editor, Michael Barrett, a liking for the wonderfully expressive vocabulary of Yiddish. I remember Kevin Rudd in 2007, ALP candidate for PM, campaigning with the slogan “this reckless spending must stop!” That is chutzpah! Mr Barrett has more contemporary examples of behaviour only Yiddish fully captures, with Canberra their natural home.
This is the editorial from the Winter 2026 edition of the IPA Reviewby Editor of the IPA Review, Scott Hargreaves. IPA Members receive a print edition and online versions of articles are progressively released in the months following publication. To join/subscribe see here.
