IPA Review – June 2017

This article first appeared in the IPA Review July 2017 This year marks an important milestone in the ongoing battle for truth and objectivity in the science of climate change—the publication of the IPA’s latest book, Climate Change: The Facts 2017. Edited by IPA Senior Fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy, the book includes contributions by Marohasy, Jo Nova, Tony Heller and

A New Yorker cartoon earlier this year showed a passenger standing up in a plane saying to his fellow passengers: ‘These smug pilots have lost touch with regular passengers like us. Who thinks I should fly the plane?’ This represents a new meme where citizens must choose between mob-rule populism and enlightened expert rule. The choice is emblematic of how

At the heart of any change to Australia’s industrial relations system should be the expansion of opportunities to work. In particular, the creation of new opportunities for those that currently have none. And there are fewer groups more opportunity-stricken than the young and unemployed. This is why moves to make it easier to hire young people—to give more Australians opportunities—are

A new book demonstrates that European integration has always been an elite project, writes Sebastian Reinehr. In his new book Continental Drift, American diplomat Benjamin Grob-Fitzgibbon demonstrates that, from its very first moments, European integration and centralisation was always an elite project. As early as 1897, British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury declared: ‘The Federation of Europe is our only hope.’

Liberalism is waning everywhere, but that offers the opportunity for renewal, writes Dr Chris Berg. Nothing in the language of the 2017 Commonwealth budget was exceptional by Australian standards. Treasurer Scott Morrison stood in parliament and announced what he described as a ‘fair and responsible path back to a balanced budget’, followed by an optimistic account of global macroeconomic conditions,

A new book launches a spirited attack on the identity politics of contemporary art, writes Andrew Bushnell. Corrupted by identity politics, high culture in the West is no longer about the search for truth or beauty, but merely a tool for the advancement of leftist social engineering. So argues Wall Street Journal editorial writer Sohrab Ahmari in The New Philistines,

Australia’s legal system was born just months after the First Fleet arrived when two convicts sued a ship’s captain and won, writes Dr Bella d’Abrera. When the First Fleet set sail from Portsmouth in May 1787, a complete copy of Sir William Blackstone’s multi-volume Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769) had been safely stowed on board one of 11

Natural justice is under threat in the class war against white collar crime, writes Andrew Bushnell and Darcy Allen. ‘White collar crime’ didn’t exist until 1940. That was the year American sociologist Edwin Sutherland dreamt up the idea that the ‘suave and deceptive’ upper reaches of society, insulated by their class privilege, were getting away with untold criminality, and so

Expats living through the Russian Revolution deliver fascinating and colourful eyewitness accounts in a new book reviewed by Dr Bella d’Abrera. When American journalist Arno Dosch-Fleurot arrived in Petrograd (formerly St Petersburg) in November 1916, he spent his first night attempting to sleep on a billiard table. Despite wiring the Hotel de France ahead, he was informed upon arrival that

‘Drain the swamp’ was a core message of Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. This simple message referenced the entrenched special interests feeding from the taxpayer-funded trough in Washington DC. In Canberra, we have our very own swamp, where government departments and taxpayer-funded non-government organisations advocate not only for their own existence, but also for progressive answers to contentious public policy