[The complete December 2017 edition of the IPA Review can be downloaded here.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial
Darcy Allen
The Future of History
Western Civilisation is being neglected in Australian history courses, but there is hope for the future.
Dr Bella d’Abrera
Lighting Up Australia’s Energy Future
If government intervention can create our energy crisis then policy reform will also be able to fix it.
Daniel Wild
The Ten Worst Constitutional Mistakes
Parts of our Constitution have undermined state sovereignty, increased the size of government, and centralised power in Canberra.
Morgan Begg and Simon Breheny
A sensible originalist reading of the Constitution would have avoided the parliamentary citizenship saga.
Morgan Begg
The Blockchain Revolution
Economists explain the far-reaching implications of blockchain technology on society and on how we are governed.
Dr Chris Berg, Professor Sinclair Davidson and Professor Jason Potts
How does work in the sharing economy fit into Australian labour laws?
Aaron Lane
Economic development must come through restoring economic rights to the poor.
Peter Gregory
Freedom to Climate Change
Scientific debate about climate change has been silenced.
Simon Breheny
The Right Way to Debate Religious Freedoms
Both sides in the religious liberty debate might give up the debate altogether in return for state privileges.
Morgan Begg
Democratic transitions from around the world teach us about the future of free markets and free people.
Georgina Downer
A new book reveals how Europe has forgotten who it is.
Matthew Lesh
A new book examines ‘class cluelessness’ in America.
Gideon Rozner
The Deakin Puzzle
A new book deciphers the enigmatic life of Alfred Deakin.
Richard Allsop
Featured Articles
Peter Gregory
Development Done Right: The Atlas Foundation’s Anti-Poverty Program
This article was first published in the December 2017 IPA Review. As Harvard development expert Lant Pritchett says, ‘There are no poor people. There are people living in poor places’. This is demonstrated by the fact that when poor people relocate to countries where they have economic rights—property rights, access to a transparent legal system, protection from corruption, minimal barriers
Matthew Lesh
How Europe Forgot Itself
This article first appeared in the December 2017 edition of the IPA Review: The world is coming into Europe at precisely the moment that Europe has lost sight of what it is,’ Douglas Murray writes. ‘And while the movement from other cultures into a strong and assertive culture might have worked, the movement of millions into a guilty, jaded and
Simon Breheny
The Ten Worst Constitutional Mistakes
This article first appeared in the December 2017 IPA Review. The Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act was passed into law by the British parliament in 1900, received royal assent, and became the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. While the Constitution has served Australia well on the whole, several sections—either by their drafting or through the expansive interpretations
Aaron Lane
A Platform to Work: The Sharing Economy
This article appeared in the December 2017 IPA Review: An increasing number of Australians are turning to sharing economy platforms to work independently. Airtasker’s (a popular sharing economy platform) 2017 survey on the ‘Future of Work’ reported that 10 per cent of respondents earned income from sharing economy platforms, and 58 percent would consider earning income from a freelancing platform
Richard Allsop
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
Morgan Begg
The Right Way to Debate Religous Freedoms
Both sides in the religious liberty debate might give up the debate altogether in return for state privileges, writes Morgan Begg. The federal parliament’s bipartisan Marriage Law Survey (Additional Safeguards) Act, introduced in September, was a watershed moment in the religious freedom debate in Australia. The Additional Safeguards law implemented a range of measures to regulate communication during the Australian Marriage Law
Simon Breheny
Freedom to Climate Change
Debates over climate change science have been silenced, writes Simon Breheny. From government officials using their positions to academics using the law, there are many ways in which proponents of interventionist policy are attempting to shut down the climate change debate. In resorting to these means of silencing others, they reveal their lack of confidence in their own position and
Chris Berg
The Blockchain Revolution
Economists explain the far-reaching implications of blockchain technology on society and on how we are governed. A blockchain is a digital, decentralised, distributed ledger. This year saw a meteoric rise in interest in cryptocurrencies and the blockchain technologies that power them. Even the government is now interested. There’s now a Commonwealth Parliamentary Friends of Blockchain group, and one blockchain energy
Bella d'Abrera
The Future of History
Western Civilisation is being neglected in Australian history courses. But there is hope for the future, writes Dr Bella d’Abrera. As part of its Foundations of Western Civilisation Program, this October the Institute of Public Affairs released its latest research report, The Rise of Identity Politics – An Audit of History Teaching at Australian Universities. We systematically reviewed all 746 history undergraduate subjects taught at
Peter Gregory
Doing Development Differently
As Harvard development expert Lant Pritchett says, ‘There are no poor people. There are people living in poor places’. This is demonstrated by the fact that when poor people relocate to countries where they have economic rights—property rights, access to a transparent legal system, protection from corruption, minimal barriers to entry—they prosper. The story of top-down government to government ‘development
