Research Papers

Agriculture is the backbone of Queensland’s economy. Along with resources and tourism, the agricultural sector is critical in supporting the development of the fastest growing state in Australia. Agriculture embodies the values of hard work, risk-taking and entrepreneurship: the values which are central to the Australian way of life. Farmers, graziers and stockmen are an inextricable part of the Australian

One of the key claims made in favour of changing Australia’s Commonwealth Constitution to include an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament is that it will only be an advisory body. However, the wording of the proposed constitutional change is not clear cut in respect to what the powers of the Voice will be. This constitutional uncertainty makes

History as a discipline as taught in Australian universities is no longer about a study of the past, as it has been replaced by post-modernist theory. In The Idea of History, the great English philosopher Historian RG Collingwood wrote that ‘history is for human self- knowledge. The only clue to what man can do is what man has done. The

Australia is rapidly entering a new economic era of high inflation, high and rising interest rates, intense cost of living pressures, and heavily constrained government budgets ladened with high and growing debt levels. Cost of living pressures, associated with economy-wide inflation, and within certain critical sectors such as energy, transport, and food, are likely to continue rising. Inflationary pressures, combined

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has taken a lead role in providing empirically-grounded reform proposals for the criminal justice system, with a strong focus on reducing incarceration numbers. The report released in 2017, titled Australia’s Criminal Justice Costs: An International Comparison noted that ‘despite spending more than most countries [on prisons] and more and more each year, our results

Since the goldrush of the 1850s and throughout the bulk of the 20th century, Victoria has been the economic and cultural centre of Australia. Victoria’s vast wealth was generated by an abundance of natural resources, agriculture and the ability for manufacturers to access affordable and reliable energy from the Latrobe Valley. The recession of the early 1990s was followed by

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. I’d like to set out some broader economic context for the bill and its intent to alleviate the crippling worker shortage facing our nation. Forthcoming research by the Institute of Public Affairs has established the significant economic challenges facing Australia, which this bill seeks to alleviate. New private sector

In response to the covid-19 pandemic, Australia imposed some of the strictest measures in the western world. The restrictions dramatically changed every aspect of society and human dynamics and engagement. This resulted in the fracturing of social cohesion and reduction in nearly every indicia of human flourishing. This report evaluates the harm caused as a direct result of covid-19 restrictions,

The criminal law was the main instrument employed by the Victorian government to force Victorians to comply with the strictest covid-19 lockdown in the world. More than 50,000 normally law-abiding Victorians were subjected to criminal sanctions for breaches of covid-19 restrictions. The criminal law is society’s harshest form of condemnation and strongest instrument of coercion. It must only be used

“The simple fact is our governments got it wrong. Contemporary warnings issued by Dr Bhattacharya, and his colleagues should have been heeded and the pain and suffering of our failed COVID response avoided,” said Scott Hargreaves, Executive Director of the Institute of Public Affairs. At today’s launch of the IPA’s two ground-breaking research papers on the impact of Australia’s failed