Dr Peter Ridd has won the biggest victory on free speech in a generation. Watch Gideon Rozner discuss the case on The Bolt Report on Tuesday:
In the historic judgement Judge Vasta found that James Cook University was wrong on all counts in dismissing Peter for questioning the science around the Great Barrier Reef. Gideon said in a media release “this judgement should rightly send shockwaves through Australian universities regarding their commitment to academic freedom.”
Dr Jennifer Marohasy thanked all of Peter’s supporters in The Spectator Australia on Tuesday for their unwavering support. Even the NTEU knows what a victory this is for academic freedom, saying “the right to speak freely about academic matters needs to be especially protected when views are unpopular or controversial.” You can read Judge Vasta’s full judgement here.
- Remove all references to race in the Constitution.
- Repeal Section 18C.
- Withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement.
These are just three of the IPA’s 20 Policies to Fix Australia which we released after the election was called. As Daniel Wild said in The Australian last week what Australia needs is a “bold vision and the wherewithal to take the slings and arrows that come with such a vision.”
The great Roger Scruton has been fired by Theresa May from his role as housing advisor to the UK government for what Brendan O’Neill in Spiked called “a transparent hit job” by The New Statesman magazine. Read Scruton’s reflections on what happened, and why it shows “we are being cowed into abject conformity around a…world view that we cannot examine for fear of being publicly humiliated by the censors.”
I hope you’re not reading Hey at Michigan State University! One student lodged a bias complaint against their roommate for the terrible crime of watching a Ben Shapiro video in their home.
And just because he’s no longer Prime Minister doesn’t mean Malcolm Turnbull will stop trying to spend taxpayer money. After the terrible fire at Notre Dame, Turnbull called on Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten to spend money to restore the Cathedral “so that Australians can show their solidarity once again with the people of France.”
Article of the week:
Even if Australia shouldn’t be spending taxpayer money restoring Notre Dame, we can mourn its loss. Douglas Murray in The Spectator in the UK on Monday said “if Notre Dame can burn then all this is as nothing, because it tells us something too deep to bear.”
IPA Staff Pick:
Each week an IPA staff member shares what they have enjoyed recently. Today: Daniel Wild
The rise of corporate activism, such as by industry superannuation funds, raises a key question for the right of politics: how can we best prevent the left from seizing the means of production via control of capital flows? While I don’t agree with the premise of this piece from Bloomberg, it raises an interesting point about how financial gains can be made by those on the right as a result of left-leaning (so-called environmental, social, and governance factors) investment activism.
Here’s what else the IPA said this week:
- Andrew Bushnell, US criminal justice reform a lesson for us – The Australian
- Morgan Begg, The outrage mob is out to get Folau – The Sydney Morning Herald
- Evan Mulholland, 15 policies the Coalition should implement but won’t, and 5 policies they should not implement but will – Media Release
