If you want to know why 730,000 Australians are unemployed, and why one in five prime-age males don’t work, this is a good place to start:
Australia is 110th out of 137 countries for flexibility of hiring and firing and 109th for flexibility of wage determination according to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Index Report released last week. As the IPA’s Daniel Wild noted on Friday, this places us behind developing nations like Botswana and Mozambique. Australia was 21st on the overall global competitiveness index.
The government’s marriage survey speech restrictions are blasphemy laws that breach the rule of law. That’s the key take out from Simon Breheny’s Parliamentary Research Brief sent to all Commonwealth parliamentarians last week.
Donald Trump is the least regulatory US President since Ronald Reagan according to this fascinating analysis from the Competitive Enterprise Institute on Sunday. We need this in Australia – as recent IPA research found, red tape costs Australia $176 billion a year in lost economic output.
What a difference a few months makes! This headline is from The Telegraph in May:
This headline is from the ABC (Yes – the ABC!) last Friday:
But nah, everything about climate change is settled. Of course, in Climate Change: The Facts 2017 Prof. Peter Ridd questions all the dire predictions you’ve heard about the Reef. Listen to Peter discuss CCTF with Alan Jones in July.
You can’t get more Conversation than this. The name of their new monthly podcast? ‘Trust Me, I’m An Expert‘.
Canadian parliamentarians are on the brink of making it legal to drink while kayaking. But before you declare Justin Trudeau’s Canada a libertarian paradise, please note it is still illegal to drink whilst driving a hovercraft.
South Park is now in its 23rd season but is showing no signs of slowing down! Check out this hilarious clip from its last episode on identity politics (but you’ll want to put your headphones in).
Senator David Leyonhjelm is launching his new book Freedom’s Salesman in Melbourne on 12 October and Sydney on 10 October. David discussed the book on the Young IPA Podcast last month.
Our friends at the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance are hosting the Inaugural Ray Evans Memorial Oration in Melbourne on 1 December, which will be delivered by Hugh Morgan AC. Tickets here.
Article of the week:
To some, Hugh Hefner was a brilliant businessman, social liberator, and cultural icon. Not Ross Douthat in the New York Times on Sunday, who in an excoriating obituary described Hefner as “a leering grotesque in a captain’s hat“.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Morgan Begg
As Kyle Smith explained in the National Review on Wednesday, the late Tom Petty was not only a legend of Southern-style American rock, his music was utterly timeless. From the Heartbreakers, to the Traveling Wilburys, to his collaborations with ELO frontman Jeff Lynne – like this track below – Petty only got better with age:
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- John Roskam, No safe space from the self-righteous – The Australian Financial Review
- Scott Hargreaves, Rural vs urban discontents deconstructed – FreedomWatch
- Matthew Lesh, Australia’s universities are failing to protect free speech – ABC Online
- Matthew Lesh, Repeating Turnbull’s blunder – The Spectator Australia
- Simon Breheny, On Toyota, banks, penalty rates and more – ABC News Breakfast
- Georgina Downer, On Macklemore, gas and more – Sky News AM Agenda
- Matthew Lesh, On sport and politics, the ABCC and more – Sky News Weekend Agenda
