Liberal MP for Warringah and soon to be Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, in April 2012 at the Institute of Public Affairs 70th Anniversary celebration promised:
“I want to assure you
that the Coalition will indeed repeal the carbon tax, abolish the Department of
Climate Change, abolish the Clean Energy Fund. We will repeal Section 18C of
the Racial Discrimination Act, at least in its current form. We will abolish
new health and environmental bureaucracies. We will deliver $1 billion in red
tape savings every year. We will develop northern Australia. We will repeal the
mining tax. We will create a one stop shop for environmental approvals. We will
privatise Medibank Private. We will trim the public service and we will stop
throwing good money after bad on the NBN. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is a
big “yes” to many of the 75 specific policies you urged upon me…”
The Sydney MorningHerald on the subject of the IPA, 7 April 2016:
Four months from
election and the people scratch their heads. Why, again, are we destroying the
Reef for some billionaire Indian coalminer? Why fund private schools and
de-fund public ones? Above all, how did Australia go from a country where the
poor occasionally stole the goose from the common to one where the rich are
consistently rewarded for stealing the common from the goose? The answer, at
least in part, appears to be the IPA.
The IPA has three member
senators, David Leyonhjelm, Bob Day and James Paterson, and a fourth-in-waiting
with ex-human rights commissioner Tim Wilson running in the lower house. It
also has several state MPs and members with regular media gigs – like IPA
senior fellow Chris Berg (The Drum and Fairfax) and board member Janet
Albrechtsen, whose recent column in The Ozpuffed Paterson and Wilson as
"outstanding warrior[s] for the freedom cause". They all talk a lot
about warriors – which is also what Abbott called Credlin.
But the IPA's real power
is the charisma of wealth. At its 70th birthday gala dinner in 2013, Rupert
Murdoch gave the keynote. NewsCorp's Andrew Bolt was MC and opposition
leader Tony Abbott called the IPA "freedom's discerning friend". Gina
Rinehart, George Pell, George Brandis and Alan Jones were guests…..
Still, the IPA then
seemed like harmless cranks. Now it seems they're all but writing government
policy. Even that's not bad in itself. The wealthy are allowed their clubs, and
governments must get ideas from somewhere. But when the private interest of Big
Money consistently presents as public interest, it's time to worry. Big time.
We've heard much lately
of illegal developer funding, which caused the NSW Electoral Commission to
withhold $4.4 million from the NSW Liberals. But developers aren't the only
group who might seek influence, and brown paper bags are not the only vehicle.
The IPA has long
insisted NGOs should be transparent, but it's notoriously secretive about its
own sources of money. (Executive director John Roskam says its donors get
intimidated). But revealed sources include all the bad boys of Big
International Money: media, oil, tobacco, genetics, energy and forestry. Who
benefits from IPA policy? They do.
In 2012, the IPA
published "Seventy-Five
Radical Ideas to Transform Australia". I haven't done the math, but
I'd say over a third are now law or seriously discussed.
DeSmog reporting on the IPA, 17 July 2018:
Australia’s richest person,
mining magnate Gina Rinehart, has been revealed as a key funder of the right
wing think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) – a major pusher of
climate science denial.
Rinehart’s company,
Hancock Prospecting Proprietary Ltd (HPPL), donated $2.3m to
the IPA in 2016 and $2.2m in 2017, according to disclosures made to
the New South Wales Supreme Court.
As part of a
long-running legal dispute over the use of company funds, Gina Rinehart’s
daughter Bianca had served a subpoena to access documents that would have shed
light on the two donations from HPPL to the IPA.
The IPA is an
influential right wing think tank with close ties to Australia’s governing
Liberal Party. IPA fellows regularly appear in the media. The
payments suggest that more than a third of the IPA’s income in 2016 and
2017 was from HPPL – majority-owned privately by Gina Rinehart.
According to Forbes,
Rinehart was the seventh richest woman in the world in 2017 and Australia’s
richest person, with current wealth estimated
to be $17.6 billion.
The IPA is a
registered charity but is not legally required to disclose its funders and has
declined to reveal them in recent years, citing concerns that donors could
be “intimidated”.
According to the court judgement, Bianca’s solicitors had been
provided with a schedule of “donations and sponsorships”
from HPPL where it was disclosed, the judgement said,
“that HPPL paid or provided amounts to IPA in a total of
$2.3 million for the 2016 financial year and $2.2 million in the 2017 financial year.”
The donations also raise
questions about the way the IPA has disclosed the nature of
its revenues.
The IPA's 2017 annual report declared $6.1m of income but
said that “86 per cent” had come from individuals. HPPL’s $2.2m donation
constituted more than a third of the IPA’s income that year.
In 2016, the IPA reported that 91 per cent of donations
were from individuals, but that year HPPL’s $2.3m donation constituted
almost half the IPA's income of $4.96m that year.
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