IPA Review – October 2017

IPA Review – October 2017

From The Editor

Darcy Allen

The Latest from the IPA

Default On Debt Conversation

The debt debate is over with the political class.

Professor Sinclair Davidson

How Identity Politics Divides Us

Identity politics threatens our liberal democracy.

Andrew Bushnell and Daniel Wild

Your Right To Try

Revolutionary legislation in America returns sick people the fundamental right to save their own life.

Deborah Sims

How To Stop A Crime Wave

Active policing of small crimes, along with targeted and community policing, are crucial in stopping a crime wave.

Andrew Bushnell

Indefensible Waste

Australian defence procurement must avoid the creep of industry policy, which only leads to cost blowouts and delays.

Erik M. Jacobs

Australian Men Without Work

A new book reveals how prime aged American men are leaving the workforce. There is a similar invisible underclass here in Australia.

Gideon Rozner

The Dunkirk Stories

Dunkirk the film is the latest framing of a long-told story.

Gary Sturgess

War on Australian Soil

A new book reveals government plans for the destruction of resources and the mobilisation of civilians in the event of a Japanese invasion in World War II.

Michael Husek

Righting Wrongs in America

Promoting discrimination to right historical injustice ultimately eschews Americans’ duty to live together as equals.

Andrew Bushnell

Liberalism in Decline

A new book, supposedly on the global decline of liberalism, amounts to a thinly veiled diatribe against Donald Trump.

Morgan Begg

Avoiding a Christian Extinction

Western Churches must defend and advocate for what they stand for, rather than shrink into seclusion.

Fr James Grant

Reagan Rising

Despite doubts about his age, intellect, and political philosophy, Ronald Reagan’s message of hope won him the presidency.

Richard Allsop

Strange Times

James Bolt and Dr Bella D’abrera

A PDF of the full edition can be downloaded here.

Editorial - Andrew Bushnell
Editorial - Darcy Allen

Righting Wrongs In America

The Threat of Identity Politics

Featured Articles


Reagan Rising
Richard Allsop

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
Read
Avoiding A Christian Extinction
Father James Grant

Avoiding A Christian Extinction

Whether you are an active Christian, or someone who recognises the central role that Christianity plays in forming and sustaining western values, the fragility of our current churches continues to evoke deep angst and concern. This trend should make us question how Christianity can be prevented from becoming a shell of its former self. The most recent foray into this
Read
How To Stop A Crime Wave
Andrew Bushnell

How To Stop A Crime Wave

In politics, the range of ideas that the public will accept is known as the Overton Window. Ideas from outside the window can shift the public discourse, changing what people think of as normal. The same is true for behaviour. People’s conduct is governed by their idea of what is socially acceptable. The more that antisocial behaviour is tolerated, the
Read
Default on Debt Conversation
Sinclair Davidson

Default on Debt Conversation

The debt debate is over with the political class, writes Professor Sinclair Davidson. Recently on The Bolt Report Michael Kroger—former IPA director and now Victorian Liberal Party president—made the point that it was a great pity that the argument on deficit and debt had been lost. The loss of the deficit and debt argument is a tragedy on many levels—not least
Read
Reagan’s Hope
Richard Allsop

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
Read
Liberalism in Decline
Morgan Begg

Liberalism in Decline

 A new book, supposedly on the global decline of liberalism, amounts to a thinly veiled diatribe against Donald Trump, writes Morgan Begg. It is a tired cliché that 2016 was a big year in politics. The established way of doing politics was given a severe shock, and the magnitude of the commentariat’s disconnect from the communities they spoke down to
Read
The Dunkirk Stories
Gary Sturgess

The Dunkirk Stories

 Dunkirk the film is the latest framing of a long-told story, writes Gary Sturgess. Human beings are coded for narrative: it is how we make sense of the world. The psychologist, Donald Polkinghorne argued that ‘the self is ultimately nothing but a dense constellation of interwoven narratives’—the stories we tell about ourselves, and the stories that others tell about us.
Read
Australian Men Without Work
Gideon Rozner

Australian Men Without Work

 A new book reveals how prime aged American men are leaving the workforce. Gideon Rozner shines a light on a similar invisible underclass here in Australia. Forget what you’ve heard— in the land down under fewer and fewer of us are men at work. Today almost one in five men in Australia between the ages 20 and 54 lack paid
Read
How Identity Politics Divides Us
Andrew Bushnell

How Identity Politics Divides Us

Identity politics threatens our liberal democracy, writes Andrew Bushnell and Daniel Wild. The idea that Indigenous Australians should have a separate voice in our Parliament, the push to make Australia Day a representation of our divisions rather than our unity, and the calls for formalised diversity quotas are all manifestations of identity politics, where our legal rights are allocated according
Read

Book Reviews


All IPA Review – October 2017 Articles