This is why the best form of welfare is a job, and why it is so important to lower the barriers to employment. 64% of workers in low-paid work transition to higher-paid work within just two years:
That’s from Kurt Wallace’s Parliamentary Research Brief The First Rung: The role of low-paid work in building success released last week.
You can relax – the ‘world’s lungs’ aren’t going anywhere. The international story of Brazil’s fires has quickly been revealed to be classic overblown internet outrage – the total fire activity is actually below average according to NASA, the damage is overstated and Macron, DiCaprio and other celebrities were spreading fake information. As Brendan O’Neill said in Spiked on Tuesday, “it simply isn’t true that mankind is at war with forestland.”
Martin Place in Sydney will now have a statue of Sir James Martin after Lord Mayor Clover Moore (momentarily distracted from ignoring women’s safety) reversed her decision to stop the statue for not being “contemporary”. While this is good news, we now can’t make a sequel to Dr Bella d’Abrera’s politically correct walking tour of Ballarat’s statues.
Dave Chappelle’s masterclass stand-up special, released this week, sees him make even more jokes about every taboo topic he got criticised for making jokes about last special. It’s riled up outrage from all the usual suspects, but as Robby Soave said on Reason “I don’t expect cancel culture to die off anytime soon, but if it does, it will be because Dave Chappelle shot it to death.”
Jacinta Price’s ‘Mind the Gap: Bridging the Indigenous divide’ tour is underway! There’s still time to book tickets for the remaining towns and cities. Remember to use the coupon code ‘price10’ to get a 10 per cent discount for Hey readers.
IPA Senior Fellow Dr Jennifer Marohasy and award winning cinematographer Clint Hempsall are presenting a new photographic and scientific report on climate change and the Great Barrier Reef at the Ocean International Resort in Mackay on Monday 2 September. Book your ticket here!
Article of the week:
This putrid sketch from The Simpsons writers went viral last week, and while everyone else collectively shut it out of their minds lest it ruin fond Simpsons memories, Peter Spiliakos used it to show the cowardice of tribal comedy in National Review on Wednesday. Spiliakos says comedy “writers have given up. They know that the audience they are writing for will accept slop as long as the message is vaguely reassuring.”
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: John Roskam
Katharine Birbalsingh is truly inspirational. She set up Michaela School in North London 5 years ago, a free school that’s become known as “Britain’s strictest school” for using conservative values of discipline, work ethic and kindness with students from working class and disadvantaged backgrounds – and the results are fantastic. Students from Michaela school performed four times better than the national average in the school’s first GCSE results.
I’ve known about Katharine for a while and I was lucky enough to meet her in 2011 when she gave this magnificent speech to The Sydney Institute. Our own Peter Gregory wrote about the UK’s free schools policy and the lessons for Australia in the IPA Review in 2012.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Daniel Wild, No call to heed a divisive voice – The Australian
- Gideon Rozner, Why won’t the left admit: Their war on Alan Jones is a war on dissenting opinion – The Spectator Australia
- Scott Hargreaves, When regulators roam out of control – The Spectator Australia
- Morgan Begg, The G-G should resign – The Spectator Australia
- John Roskam, Should there be laws about being offended? – ABC The Friday Fix
- Scott Hargreaves, Editorial: High time to climb free – IPA Review
- Daniel Wild, The illiberalism of a Voice to Parliament – ABC News Breakfast
- Daniel Wild, End renewable subsidies – ABC News Breakfast
- Morgan Begg, Religious discrimination bill has many problems and could be a risk to religious freedom – Media Release
