Here’s a shock! CEOs in Australia have identified excessive taxes and red tape as two of the three biggest threats to growth in their organisations:
That’s from PwC’s 21st Annual Global CEO Survey. Daniel Wild explains in the IPA’s latest video how cutting taxes for businesses would help all Australians:
How’s this for fake news! The New York Times felt that Kim Jong-un’s sister outdid US vice president Mike Pence in diplomacy by “flashing smiles” at the Winter Olympics. Of course we shouldn’t be surprised the NYT would be starry-eyed about a Marxist regime – in September last year we told you about the article they ran about how great women had it in Soviet Russia.
Have you ever heard of the “McGurk effect”? I hadn’t either, until I read Scott Adams’ latest book, Win Bigly. We’ve told you about Scott Adams before – the creator of the Dilbert cartoon who predicted in August 2015 that Trump would be the president. You can read a bonus chapter from the book at the Dilbert blog here, and watch this video to see what he means by the McGurk effect.
Spiked’s fantastic annual Free Speech University Rankings released this month show that only 7 out of 115 British universities have free and open speech policies on campus. But that’s not as bad as Australia! Just one Australian university received a green ranking for supporting free speech in the IPA’s Free Speech on Campus Audit 2017.
Your long read this week is this fascinating 3,200 word essay by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry in the December edition of America magazine on the deep “spiritual sickness” in the Catholic Church which is stopping it from being the Silicon Valley of the religious world again.
Live in Sydney? Be in the audience as the IPA’s Simon Breheny joins the Q&A panel on Monday night. Register here.
Article of the week:
Last week’s Congressional spending deal means the Tea Party is now dead, according to one of the movement’s key figures Matt Kibbe on Reason on Sunday. However, Kibbe argues that partisan political interests may have ended the party, but the ideas of liberty and limited government are still very much alive.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Simon Breheny
Conservative MEP Dan Hannan this week defended the right of infamous Hungarian-American billionaire and ideological adversary George Soros to “spend his money however he likes“. Hannan’s (qualified) defence in the Washington Examiner is a good example of Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s famous articulation of Voltaire’s position on freedom of speech: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- John Roskam, Why Darkest Hour, a film about Winston Churchill, is an international success – Australian Financial Review
- Matthew Lesh, Censure of Professor Peter Ridd over comments of scientific integrity a troubling development – The Daily Telegraph
- Gideon Rozner, Turnbull’s 18C on steroids – The Spectator Australia
- Jennifer Marohasy, BoM blast for dubious record hot day – FreedomWatch
- Aaron Lane, Employment and wages in the Western Australian public sector – Parliamentary Research Brief
- Gideon Rozner, The Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Bill 2017 – Parliamentary Research Brief
- James Bolt and Peter Gregory, Episode 46: Rowan Dean slams JCU over Peter Ridd censure – The Young IPA Podcast
