If you think 26 January should be celebrated, you’re just like 70% of other Australians:
You can read the details of the IPA’s Australia Day poll here. And yesterday Dr Bella d’Abrera explained in The Australian why we should commemorate our Western heritage. And Cr Jacinta Nampijinpa Price was on last week’s The Young IPA Podcast talking about how the 26 January debate distracts from real issues facing Indigenous Australians.
We’ve told you about Jordan Peterson before. His interview on the UK’s Channel 4 last week has already been watched 3.7 million times. The highlight is Peterson on freedom of speech at the 22 minute mark.
And once you’ve watched that you have to read the brilliant reactions from the great Douglas Murray – who had never seen an interview “more catastrophic for the interviewer” – and James Delingpole who called the interview a “pivotal victory in the culture wars“.
Even a columnist at The Guardian endorsed what Peterson had to say about free speech and the right to offend. If only his colleagues at The Guardian Australia believed in freedom of speech…
And he’s coming to Australia! He will be speaking in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in March about his book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. You can buy tickets here. And if you need even more, you can watch his 3 hour interview on the world’s biggest podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, from May last year.
This might shock you – a report on inequality by a Labor-leaning think tank completely missed the point. Daniel Wild and Andrew Bushnell explained in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday why work and reward are more important than welfare:
And you can read Daniel and Andrew’s report, Understanding Inequality in Australia, from November last year.
If you want to know why you are having trouble with your internet connection, this might explain it. It turns out the federal government’s NBN Co spends time organising “diversity walks” for their staff. If you’re a public servant working at NBN Co you get to pretend to be a “single mum… a married Muslim man, a person who suffers anxiety, a working parent, a gay man with partner and child, a single grad, etc“.
Article of the week:
Victor Davis Hanson in this great 3000 word piece for the latest edition of the National Review marked President Trump’s first year as the “most successful and conservative governance since Ronald Reagan’s.”
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: John Roskam
The great Jeffrey Tucker is coming to Australia to speak at the 6th Australian Libertarian Society Friedman Conference in May – you can book tickets here. Over the holidays I was reading Ludwig von Mises’ 1927 classic Liberalism – which Tucker included in his “5 Essential Books for Liberty Lovers in Dark Times“.
Here’s a selection of what the IPA has said recently:
- John Roskam, Australian politicians must help restore faith in democracy in 2018 – The Australian Financial Review
- Daniel Wild, Australia must match Trump to compete on tax – The Daily Telegraph
- Morgan Begg, Legal rights audit 2017 – IPA Research Report
- Matthew Lesh, Time to reopen debate – The Daily Telegraph
- Andrew Bushnell, Public safety must always be the priority – The Herald Sun
- Gideon Rozner, Red tape costs billions, so let’s black-list it – The Australian
- Dr Bella d’Abrera, How to win the West (back) – The Spectator Australia
- Dr Jennifer Marohasy, Mildura’s hottest day? Really BoM? – FreedomWatch
