Living standards are stagnating in Australia, according to the latest Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia report released on Tuesday. The goods and services that are increasing in price share one important thing in common; government control.
To ensure Australians aren’t exposed to opinions she doesn’t like, yesterday Senator Kristina Keneally called for former Breitbart editor Raheem Kassam to be banned from the country ahead of his scheduled appearance at Australia’s inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). As Daniel Wild told The Guardian Australia today, “this is yet another example of how Labor wants to stifle free speech, open discussion and dialogue in Australia”.
Daniel will be speaking at next weekend’s conference along with IPA Chairman Janet Albrechtsen and the IPA’s National Manager of Generation Liberty Renee Gorman. You can purchase tickets for the event here, IPA Members can use the code IPA50-CPAC at checkout for a discount on the “Iron Lady” General Pass.
ACT Policing has admitted to accessing citizens’ metadata 3,365 times without lawful authority, which is exactly what the IPA said would happen in 2015 when the data retention laws were being debated. In addition to law enforcement, more than 60 agencies have accessed metadata, including the Australian Tax Office, the Victorian Fisheries Authority, and quite possibly, your local council. Download this week’s Looking Forward Podcast for an excellent discussion on this issue.
The ACCC on Friday recommended increased regulation of Facebook and Google because of the spread of “disinformation”, and because “few consumers are fully informed of…the scope of data collection” when they sign up on digital platforms. Surely the same could be said of the government’s metadata laws?
The spread of disinformation is taken very seriously by the renowned fact-checking website Snopes, who have continued to sound the alarm that the conservative satire news site the Babylon Bee cannot be trusted. Without Snopes we all would have believed the Bee’s headline: ” CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News before Publication“.
IPA members and supporters are invited to the launch of A Free Country: Australia’s Search for Utopia 1861-1901 by Dr David Kemp, at The University of Melbourne on Tuesday, 6 August 2019 at 5pm, with John Roskam speaking. The event is free but guests must register their attendance here.
Time is running out to buy tickets to the 2019 conference of The Samuel Griffith Society, which will be held in Melbourne from 9 to 11 August 2019. The conference features speakers such as Peter Ridd, Alan Jones, Judith Sloan, Geoffrey Blainey, and John Roskam. Bookings can be made here.
‘Mind the Gap’ is the title of a new national tour by Jacinta Price starting on 26 August in Adelaide, and going to Mildura, Bendigo, Melbourne, Albury, Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Brisbane, and Toowoomba. You can book here.
Article of the week:
Boris Johnson’s promotion of pro-Brexit politicians has offended the “anti-Brexit elites’ sense of entitlement“, writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked last week. O’Neill views the reshuffle as a correction of an undemocratic disparity where “a nation which voted Leave was so dominated by a Remainer elite”, and warns of the political disaster should the government now not deliver Brexit.
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Andrew Bushnell
Over recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in nationalism on the centre right. But speaking at the recent National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame professor and author of the bestselling Why Liberalism Failed, sounded a note of caution, reminding the audience of nationalism’s propensity for disrupting traditional ways of life.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Daniel Wild, Time to voice concerns – The Daily Telegraph
- Dr Bella d’Abrera, The hypocrisy of academics – Sky News The Bolt Report
Dr Bella d’Abrera, My reaction to compulsory climate change classes in schools – Sky News The Kenny Report
