IPA Review Articles

1 December 2016

 Politicians yearning for a nostalgic return to glory days are failing modern America, according to a book reviewed by Daniel Wild.    Modern politics in America has a nostalgia problem. Americans and the politicians who represent them yearn for the old days, rendering both sides of politics blind to problems and incapable of finding solutions. For Yuval Levin, America since

1 December 2016

Originally appeared in the IPA Review, December 2016. Download document

1 December 2016

What would you do if one of al-Qaeda’s most feared, fanatical, and unpredictable leaders stops you in the street and accuses you of stealing? He has just seen you leave a building with a box containing ancient manuscripts that you legally own and are attempting to illegally smuggle away from al-Qaeda to safety. The al-Qaeda leader knows none of this,

1 December 2016

An influential economist wants to phase out paper money, writes John Hajek.    Suggesting that governments phase out cash is bound to rub some people up the wrong way—and not just the Pablo Escobars and John Gottis of the world, whose bread and butter comes from the ability to keep wads upon wads of the stuff concealed in the most

1 December 2016

  Uber and Airbnb are part of a wider market revolution changing the way the world does business, writes Evan Mulholland.  The last few decades have delivered us a monumental shift in how we receive goods and services. Disruption has enabled people to get what they want, at a price and delivery time that works for them. We often delve

1 December 2016

 Religious freedom is under threat from all sides, writes Aaron Lane.     ‘Regardless of whether Labor or Liberal wins the election, we still end up with a Catholic Prime Minister.’ You would think these were the words of a 1950s sectarian zealot. In fact, this was commentary on the 2016 Federal election by Victorian MP and Sex Party President Fiona

1 December 2016

 New technology can fix Australia’s ailing health system, but only if     To fix health care and human services – two government programs as egregiously expensive as they are important – we need to solve a basic property rights problem. It’s not a spending issue. It’s not a management flaw. This is a problem of data ownership and we can

1 December 2016

Australia’s wasteful criminal justice system needs a major overhaul, but we shouldn’t leave it to the bureaucrats, writes Andrew Bushnell     Australia’s criminal justice system is ineffective and wasteful, failing to protect the community from crime and recidivism while costing taxpayers more and more each year. Possible causes of this failure include a misallocation of resources within the system, an

1 December 2016

Australia has a 21st century workforce labouring under a 19th century industrial relations system, writes Brett Hogan.     Better health, housing, communications, education and transport options allow more people to make more decisions for themselves, helping to break down the notion of ‘class’. Defining a person by where they live, or what they or their parents do for work, is

1 December 2016

The extraordinary complaints—now, after furious media attention, withdrawn—against Bill Leak for drawing a satirical political cartoon demonstrates why Australia’s most prominent anti-free speech law must be repealed. In October, The Australian reported that the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) had accepted a complaint against cartoonist Bill Leak under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. Leak’s misdeed was his