Today is my first day sending Hey! My name is Deanna and I’m excited to be joining James and Kurt sending you this great email. A bit about me – my favourite author is George Orwell and you can follow my fur baby Attila the Bun’s Instagram here! And what a week to start on…
Unelected bureaucrats in the Attorney General’s Department are deciding which speakers you can hear in Australia. Read the chilling correspondence between LibertyWorks President and Conservative Political Action Conference Australia cofounder Andrew Cooper and the Department:
Andrew Cooper has to hand over to the bureaucrats all emails and messages he had with The American Conservative Union or risk jail. The Department also requested Tony Abbott to register as an agent of foreign influence the day before his CPAC address. Once again, this is happening in Australia.
Janet Albrechtsen wrote in The Australian ($) that this is an erosion of our freedoms and a “bureaucratic farce not even worthy of Yes, Minister”. Also in The Australian, Morgan Begg wrote that “this is the kind of behaviour one would expect from the Stasi in East Germany in 1961, not in Australia today”.
The IPA saw this coming – our Legal Rights Audit 2018 identified this legislation as one that overrides freedom and the rule of law. But there is a long way to go on this – Attorney General Christian Porter says the government will not amend the law.
Ever wondered why Christ was born a man? Well, if you haven’t, you’re paying for others to think about it. Our latest report The Humanities in Crisis: An Audit of Taxpayer Funded ARC Grants shows that 112 of the 616 taxpayer funded Historical Research projects approved by the Australian Research Council focused on class, race and gender.
Monday’s Q&A saw a spirited debate over the role of violence in feminist debate – with all panellists agreeing how necessary it is. My favourite part was Indigenous screenwriter Nayuka Gorrie saying “let’s burn stuff.”…I assume that doesn’t apply to the Q&A set?
Featuring Senator Matt Canavan and Andrew Cooper, President and Founder, LibertyWorks and President, Liberal Democrats
“I’ve been asked to table every communication that I’ve had with every speaker, with our guests from the American Conservatives Union, not only have I got to table my communications with our speakers, I’ve got to table their communications with our speakers. If I do not comply, you have no right of not complying, and if I do not comply truthfully I’m subject to 3 years jail.”
– Andrew Cooper, President and Founder, LibertyWorks and President, Liberal Democrats
Featuring Dr Zachary Gorman and Richard Allsop
“Young people always think that the status quo of a wife and two kids, nine to five job and all those sorts of things are dreadfully, dreadfully dull. But compared to what the USSR’s offering it’s paradise.”
– Dr Zachary Gorman
Article of the week:
‘Social justice’ will “drag us back into the age of unenlightened dogma”, Konstantin Kisin wrote in Cap X as part of an ATLAS-sponsored collection of essays on ‘Illiberalism in Europe’.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Morgan Begg
This Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While many saw this event as the symbolic victory of freedom over totalitarianism, David Cragg argued in the IPA Review in 2015 that the fight goes on as “the friends of civil society in places like Ukraine and Hong Kong struggle desperately to either survive or emerge as democracies.”
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Dr Zachary Gorman – End the man-made drought. Rip up the Murray Darling Basin Plan – The Spectator Australia
- Daniel Wild, The Secretary of the Attorney-General’s Department must stand down – Media Releases
- Gideon Rozner, My response to Ken Wyatt – Sky News The Friday Show
- Daniel Wild, Another example of the pernicious effects of identity politics – Sky News The Front Page
