Wholesale electricity prices in Australia have doubled over the last two years. Simon Breheny on Sky News Weekend Agenda responded to last Friday’s Finkel Review into Australia’s energy market and argued that for electricity generation coal is still the most reliable and affordable resource we have:
Brett also sent this Parliamentary Research Brief on the ‘Five Unanswered Questions from the Finkel Review‘ to all federal MPs yesterday.
How bad was the Conservative Party’s performance in the UK election? Whatever you’re thinking, it was worse. Theodore Dalrymple wrote in City Journal that “the election could take Britain back more than 50 years.” In 2016 James Bartholomew wrote this insightful article on how Theresa May was never a conservative.
For in-depth analysis of the UK election, listen to the IPA’s Georgina Downer on the latest episode of The Young IPA Podcast.
Last Friday was a huge day for people who think democracy is overrated. It all started with this report out of the Brookings Institution last month with the immortal title “More professionalism, less populism: How voting makes us stupid, and what to do about it“. Here are the three most cringeworthy anti-democracy op-eds from Friday:
- Lee Drutman in Vox on why the average, rational and individual citizen is “a myth” and we need intermediaries between politicians and the public.
- James Kirchick in The Los Angeles Times wrote “some things should not be put up to popular vote — membership in the European Union, for instance”.
- Bret Stephens in the New York Times bemoaned that “democracy is a system in which people are only accountable to themselves.” (I can’t believe I stuck up for him a few weeks ago!)
Of course the issue isn’t democracy. As John Roskam wrote on Friday for the Australian Financial Review, the issue is that politicians don’t trust their public, and that gets paid back in kind.
Australia’s criminal justice costs are increasing, but results are getting worse. The IPA’s Andrew Bushnell gave this speech to the Australian Libertarian Society’s Friedman Conference this year on what policy lessons Australia can learn from the United States.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone certainly has a thing for dictators. Remember when we told you how sad he was when Chavez died? Now Stone is in trouble for his fawning praise of Vladimir Putin. I’m starting to think when he said Pokemon Go! was totalitarian, he meant it as a compliment.
BuzzFeed found in a nationwide study of all American schools that in an apparently “alarming twist” since Donald Trump’s election there have been a whopping 54 cases of students using Trump’s language to bully each other. That’s an astonishing one instance nationwide every three to four days.
Article of the week:
The Democratic Unionist Party will hold the balance of power in the new British government. The great Dan Hannan explains on International Business Times what the party stands for, and why the freak out over its history is idiotic.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Evan Mulholland
Check out this vintage video of the IPA’s former Deputy Executive Director, now Senator James Paterson, on Q&A in June 2011 take down a climate activist over the Carbon Tax. Almost 6 years to the day since then, climate policy is back on the agenda and James will join the Q&A panel on Monday night. If you’re in Sydney you might consider joining the swamp and registering to be in the audience.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Matthew Lesh, Values matter in politics – The Spectator Australia
- Brett Hogan, Everything you need to know about the Finkel Review – FreedomWatch
- Andrew Bushnell, Lionel Messi is a white collar criminal – FreedomWatch
- Brett Hogan, More renewables will not solve the renewables problem – IPA Today
- Georgina Downer, Georgina Downer recaps the UK election – Sky News PM Agenda
