This should be the biggest story in Australia. We entered into a per capita economic recession in December for the third time in 28 years, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday:
As the IPA’s Daniel Wild said in The Australian today, governments need to stop relying on population growth through mass immigration and embrace genuine productivity growth through cutting red tape, and reforming tax and industrial relations.
If you still had any doubts about whether ABC personalities are overpaid, just look at how much the ABC pays to get rid of them! Former managing director Michelle Guthrie was paid a settlement of $730,000 on Friday on top of a $912,000 payout last year. Worse, this was a confidential settlement – they weren’t even going to tell the taxpayers who are funding the payout until a Senate committee forced the acting managing director to reveal it.
The most surprising take from the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC over the weekend came from Nick Gillespie at Reason who implored libertarians not to vote for Trump in 2016. He now thinks that Trump’s “bedazzling mix of bravado, BS, humour, and positive vision” at CPAC this year is a combination that makes re-election a “foregone conclusion ” in 2020.
The mob always turns on its own. Last month we told you about how young adult fiction gatekeepers on Twitter harassed aspiring novelist Amelie Wen Zhao for not being PC enough until she cancelled publication of her first novel. But now Kosovo Jackson, a social justice enforcer and novelist who hassled Zhao has had his own book cancelled for perceived insensitivity. Oh dear, how sad for him.
This is something that everyone who gets the occasional unkind email should read! A “journalist” from a garbage-tier “news” site published a private conversation between himself and New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. It’s safe to say Stephens’ response to the abusive emails with a 5 point plan for being a better person and journalist was entirely unheeded.
Google, which you might recall is incredibly sensitive about inequality (remember James Damore?), conducted an internal study about whether the company was underpaying women and minority groups. The study did find inequality, just not the inequality it wanted to find – men are being paid less than women for doing similar work!
The latest Marvel studios film, Captain Marvel, is released to cinemas today. It looks terrible, but if you are a man and you see it you will have to praise it! As Kyle Smith at the National Review found yesterday, feminist activists (or as I like to call them, propagandists) have slammed male film critics for being too critical.
And don’t forget the contest to win the shirt and stubby holder signed by Dave Rubin is still going. Sign up as an IPA member here by 15 March and tell us in 20 words or less why you’re Rubin’s biggest fan to win. If you missed Rubin’s 50 minute interview on The Young IPA Podcast last week, you can watch on YouTube or listen on the IPA website or any podcast app.
Article of the week:
The great Matt Ridley’s article in The Spectator UK on Sunday explains how bad science is manipulated and used by activists to accumulate power and profit and “if we use up our energies panicking about phantom hobgoblins, we might have none left for the real scares.”
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: John Roskam
Show this article to anyone who tells you about how great Germany is at renewables! This fantastic 2,400 word piece from Times Magazine ‘Hero of the Environment‘ Michael Shellenberger in Quillette last week is an important expose on the failures and dangers of renewables from someone who actually believes climate change is a serious threat. As Andrew Bushnell said on the Looking Forward Podcast last week, “if you took the premise of [catastrophic climate change] really seriously, you’d be very interested in nuclear power.”
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Dr Bella d’Abrera, Teachers being ignored in National Curriculum, Sky News Credlin
- Daniel Wild, The real reason Australia is in a per capita recession, Sky News Bolt Report
- Evan Mulholland, Evan Mulholland slams Melissa Price on bushfire comments, Sky News Front Page
- Evan Mulholland, Why do we need the ABC?, Sky News Weekend Live
- Dr Bella d’Abrera, Bureaucrats need to spend more time in classrooms, Sky News Credlin
