August 2011

Who has power over the internet?

by Josh Fear in On Line Opinion

In 1922 Herbert Hoover, United States Secretary of Commerce, declared at the first National Radio Conference in Washington, D.C: “It is inconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service, for news, for entertainment, for education, and for vital commercial purposes to be drowned in advertising chatter.” By the time Hoover became President

Carbon tax: for Abbott it’s appalling policy or appalling hypocrisy

by Matt Grudnoff in Crikey

A rather small convoy of constitutional confusion today rolled into Canberra calling for a double-dissolution election. The impending carbon price, the ban on live exports and the imminent threat of one world government were all cited by participants as motivating their demands. But no matter how sincere their confused calls for a double-dissolution election, they

Convoy of No Confidence misses the mark as mining boom hits hard

Mining boom hits BlueScope workers while Abbott manufactures concern Can farmers afford the mining boom? Making the boom pay … if not now, when? The direct costs of waiting for direct action on climate change Events Recent publications Recent media As the significantly smaller than expected Convoy of No Confidence reaches Canberra, those protesting about

Recent media

The Australia Institute now has a YouTube channel. View our recent Politics in the Pub event with OzHarvest’s Founding Director Ronni Khan. Dumping carbon tax ‘could take five years’, The Age, 11 August Paying to top your search results, ABC Radio National Breakfast, 16 August Paying for time out with the kids, BTalk, 4 August

Recent publications

The direct costs of waiting for direct action, M Grudnoff, 22 August What you don’t know can hurt you: How market concentration threatens online diversity, J Fear and R Denniss, 16 August The wage-penalty effect: The hidden cost of maternity leave, D Baker, 18 July The real cost of direct action: An analysis of the

Events

How increasing population is making the task of government harder – Kelvin Thomson MP The Australia Institute and Sustainable Population Australia will host a talk by Kelvin Thomson MP on the evening of Thursday 25 August. Kelvin will discuss the topic ‘The witches’ hats theory of government: How increasing population is making the task of

The direct costs of waiting for direct action on climate change

A rather small convoy of constitutional confusion today rolled into Canberra calling for a double-dissolution election. The impending carbon price, the ban on live exports and the imminent threat of one world government were all cited by participants as motivating their demands. But no matter how sincere their confused calls for a double-dissolution election, they

Making the boom pay … if not now, when?

“The future is in our hands, and it will be defined by the way we handle the current minerals boom. Get it wrong, and we falter. Get it right and we set the nation up for decades to come.” Prime Minister, the Hon. Julia Gillard, The Australian, 4 February 2011. So, with the news of

Mining boom hits BlueScope workers while Abbott manufactures concern

BlueScope Steel has led the tantrum against the introduction of a carbon price and today it, or more precisely its employees, have fallen victim to an entirely different problem. The rising dollar has been placing obvious pressure on the competitiveness of the Australian steel industry but the company seems to prefer playing politics than proposing

Can farmers afford the mining boom?

The past week has delivered some of the clearest evidence yet that both sides of politics are utterly in thrall to the mining sector. When asked about the escalating battle between farmers and coal seam gas miners by radio broadcaster Alan Jones, Tony Abbott made the apparently uncontroversial observation that ‘if you don’t want something

Big has become beautiful

by Richard Denniss in The Canberra Times

For all the talk about the rising cost of living in Australia it is amazing that there isn’t more concern expressed at the high mark-ups that big Australian retailers charge. Australians pay far more for clothes, computers and most other consumer goods than customers in the rest of the world. There are two main reasons

How increasing population is making the task of government harder – Kelvin Thomson MP – 25 August 2011

The Australia Institute and Sustainable Population Australia will host a talk by Kelvin Thomson MP on the evening of Thursday 25 August 2011. Kelvin will discuss the topic ‘The witches hats theory of government: How increasing population is making the task of government harder’. Providing food, water, energy, housing, education, jobs, health, liveable cities and

Abbott reads from Mao’s little green book of nonsense

by Richard Denniss in The Punch

Australian politicians have spent more than 20 years thinking up reasons not to tackle climate change, but the latest from Tony Abbott really must take the cake. According to the Opposition Leader, it now seems that until Communist China introduces a market-based mechanism to reduce their emissions, Australia shouldn’t either. That should buy us some

The right gets it very wrong

by Richard Denniss in The Canberra Times

The concepts of economic rationalism and market liberalism seem to have been abandoned by the Liberals. Whatever happened to the term economic rationalist? It wasn’t that long ago that the favourite insult hurled by the left was the badge of honour worn by the right. The arguments were hilarious. “You’re nothing but a self-serving economic

July 2011

Direct Action: Good politics, bad policy

by Matt Grudnoff in Analysis & Policy Observatory

Last week Tony Abbott branded the Government’s target to reduce emissions by five per cent by 2020 as ‘crazy’, but the crazy thing is that the Coalition has the same target. Was this just Mr Abbott getting over excited in his attacks on the Government? A slip of the tongue similar to when he told

Debating Lord Monckton

by Richard Denniss in ABC The Drum

If your doctor told you that you had cancer and Lord Christopher Monckton told you to ignore their advice would you listen to him? What if he told you not to immunise your children or drink fluoridated water? It’s interesting how many people are unlikely to trust him for personal advice but who seem willing

Denniss: My tactics for debating Monckton

by Richard Denniss in Crikey

The House of Lords says that Christopher Monckton is not entitled to claim he is a member of that House, but he disputes this. The internet is full of scientists carefully debunking the claims about climate change made by him, but he is similarly impervious to correction. Put simply, Lord Monckton is a case study

Richard Denniss vs Christopher Monckton National Press Club debate

The Australia Institute was established to inform public debate, so in that spirit Executive Director Dr Richard Denniss agreed to take the opportunity to argue the case for action on climate change at the National Press Club on Tuesday, 19 July 2011. Richard’s opponent was professional climate change sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton. Read Richard’s speech

NL July 2011

This edition of the Institute’s newsletter looks at: ‘Closing the Gap 2011’; Silencing dissent in Environment Victoria; The rise of online retail; The macroeconomics of online shopping; The future of the republican movement in Australia; and Australia’s surplus fetish. It also looks at the hidden cost of maternity leave.

Recent media

The Australia Institute now has a YouTube channel. View our recent ‘In conversation with Greens Leader Senator Bob Brown’ Politics in the Pub event. Economic road map failure, The Canberra Times, 8 July Satisfaction guaranteed: money makes us happy, The Australian, 29 June Walking both sides of the street, The Canberra Times, 24 June Mining

Recent publications

How many jobs is 23,510, really? Recasting the mining job loss debate, B Chapman and K Lounkaew, 6 June On the wrong track: The case for abandoning the promised $7 billion subsidies to Australia’s dirtiest coal-fired power stations, R Denniss, 25 May The rise and rise of online retail, B Irvine, D Richardson, J Fear

Events

The Green Institute is conducting a series of ‘Green Schools’ in July and August which offer “an opportunity for in-depth discussion on the big social, economic and environmental issues, learning hands-on skills and meeting like-minded people”. Melbourne 30-31 July, Darwin 6 August and Southwest Queensland 27-29 August. For more information, and to enrol, go to

Is climate change a left wing issue?

 The Ross Garnaut-commissioned CSIRO’s report Australians’ views of climate change last year polled 3096 Australians and found that the biggest single predictor of whether Australians believe that global warming is caused by humans is their voting intentions. The CSIRO found that 82 per cent of Greens voters and 63 per cent of Labor voters believed

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