The Institute of Public Affairs

WITHDRAW U16 SOCIAL BAN BILL NOW: For those defending freedom of speech in Australia this week feels like whack-a-mole. The Institute of Public Affairs' years-long opposition to a Mis/Disinformation Bill culminated in a sponsored tour by Michael Shellenberger and a full page ad addressed to Senators in The Australian. The tepid crossbench support for the bill evaporated, and the ALP was left exposed. Let's face it, it's exactly the kind of bill that only powerful elites would want, to stifle dissent. If not in power, why on earth would you support it? But now we have the equally dreadful but dreadful-in-different ways bill to ban social media for Under-16s. The constituency for support is different - more populist in a sense - but completely wrongheaded. And as far as process goes, dreadful. The Senate Committee which has been investigating these issues for months reported this week, and pointedly did not endorse a ban. Nor did the AHRC - normally a guaranteed cheerleader for restricting the rights of mainstream Australians. Ditto the eSafety Commissioner (!). But it has 'bipartisan' support meaning Peter Dutton is on the verge of gifting the PM a final legislative win after a mostly disastrous year (while living standards collapse). As I told Gary Hardgrave yesterday on Brisbane radio, I do not conflate the misinformation and U16 social bans either by motivation or effects. But both deserve rejection: "the misinformation disinformation regime was just evil from the start. ...concocted by people who really object to Australians having the freedom to say and think what they do. In this case, I'm going to give proponents the benefit of the doubt . They're motivated by terrible stories of harm to children and so they just want to do something (but...) "Australians are flooding their MPs to ask, how are you actually going to run this age verification process (while) protecting our privacy?...That's the one question this Bill actually ducks. It kicks that can down the road and says we'll just introduce this Bill and then eventually, the e-Safety Commissioner (will figure it out)" "...this could be the road to an Australian government digital ID, which is like your gateway to the internet, and that would be a terrible outcome. But there's other ways of doing which could be equally as terrible. What if TikTok says just before you log on, can you give us some ID, maybe send us some facial recognition, send me some private information about you so we can verify who you are. I don't want that outcome either." "it reminds me of the Australia card in 1988 introduced by the Hawke government that had bipartisan support…and there was an absolute grassroots revolt" "If there's good reasons, take them to the community, spend the summer recess, come back. If there's been bipartisan support for the Bill, well they can spend the summer telling everyone why we need to do this and exactly how that age verification is going to be implemented." #auspol

Looking forward to the opportunity to talk to a Senate committee this afternoon about problems with the regulation and governance of our energy markets, and the deleterious effect this is having on our energy securty, alongside Stephen Wilson . In about an hour. Wish me luck (or not, as is your right!).

Last week I was invited on to the Defence Connect Podcast by the great Steve Kuper, and it was an opportunity to put National Security and Defence into a broader social context, and to ask ourselves just what it will take to get some urgency into the political process and also the defence bureaucracy. (In the attached article I include the full AI generated transcript.) After we'd discussed the disturbing response to the survey about who would stay and fight in the event that Australia was threatened in the same manner as Ukraine, we had this exchange, which also enabled me to make the link between those results, what is taught in our schools and universities, but also the need for young Australians to have a stake in the country in the context of the housing crisis: "Steve: I want to pick you up or pick up on the point that you made around having young Australians having a stake in the country (which) is interesting because one of the things that I have frequently found is that, and it's something that's not necessarily picked up on in conversations around things like housing affordability, and that is that if young Australians can't buy a home here and they can't find consistent, stable work, now there's a whole host of other issues that go into that is as important as the education and the messages that they're getting through unis. Me: That is indeed the key point. I think we've seen enough hand-wringing from people saying, "Oh, yeah, we're very worried about young people not being able to afford a house." Well, it's a little bit like the defence conversation. How about we actually do something about it? How about we actually have a sense of urgency? And so that's, again, the perspective that the IPA brings to this partnership with Peter Jennings et al. is in our work on the pressures on both the supply side and the demand side for housing, the demand driver through a massive and out of control immigration program. And then on the supply side, it's a bit like defence. We haven't hit a target for the number of houses that we need to be building for over a decade. Land release is too slow. Local governments take too much cream off the top, and the cost of construction has been going through the roof. How about we actually start doing something about that? So yeah, that's exactly what I meant when I talked about the stake in the country, that people who can find their way onto the career ladders, housing ladders, the life ladder, if you like, marriage, stable family formation are people who have a stake in the nation and will work to defend it. Not everyone's going to be in uniform, obviously, but you want them to have a positive cast of mind to what we're trying to achieve here. #defence #housing #auspol Michael Shoebridge Marcus Hellyer The Institute of Public Affairs Rob Burgess https://lnkd.in/g2CRn7Dg

After a hectic day of media I sat down this morning to share The Institute of Public Affairs report on the defence of Australia, but the good news (for me) is that Ben Dullroy has already composed a pithy post on same (see below). And thank you Ben yes we are proud to have pitched a tent in the vital field of national security (after an extended absence) and very pleased to be working with Peter Jennings AO and his learned colleagues Michael Shoebridge and Marcus Hellyer thank you for kind words. The idea of the blueprint series is that we are awash with papers and plans for what might be done in a decade or two decades hence: we need a sense of urgency and we have framed it as actions that can be taken (completed or initiated) in the next term of Parliament, by the next Government, whomever it is. Ben highlighted his interest and thinking about the Pacific Response Force, and then there was a good question in comments about the challenges of establishing it in the face of very active PRC diplomacy. To amplify our recommendation I'd like to share an exchange I had with ex-Federal MP and astute commentator The Hon. Gary Hardgrave yesterday on 4BC. Clearly this would be both a diplomatic and defence initiative reliant upon trust and friendship. Gary gets it: "Gary Hardgrave: I find it stunning that we’re actually saying we can let people from other countries join our defence force now. But you’re talking about a Pacific response force with Pacific Island neighbours. Let’s face it, China and others continue to sniff around the Pacific to see if they can find friends who could become our foes. We don’t want that to happen. So we’ve got to get in there first, surely. Scott Hargreaves: Yeah, and it’s got to be an offer to them. These are our friends. We have relationships going back well through history. We’re united by family ties and sporting ties. And as we know, Australia’s always been willing to lend a hand in the South Pacific when there’s natural disasters. We have naval capabilities. So the idea of a Pacific response force is, well, let’s do this on a cooperative basis with our friends in the Pacific so that their militaries also have the opportunity to project outside their own countries and how we can both do good, make friends, and improve the overall security environment and bind them closer to us as we go forward." A full text of that interview (and others) is available at www.ipa.org.au, which is also the place where you can join up (ask me about the $55 special offer in DMs) to make sure you keep in touch with future papers in the blueprint series.

Back to energy: Our energy future is so important I was incredibly disappointed when it was reported back in June by John Kehoe in the AFR that Engineers Australia had cancelled a scheduled presentation by Robert Parker of Nuclear for Climate Australia, off the back of a post on social media by Simon Holmes à Court. I know energy and climate policy arouses strong emotions, but we must be able to have an informed debate. Especially in an organisation like Engineers Australia, whose members are uniquely placed to advise on the practicality of the various options put forward with regard to the so-called ‘energy transition’. On that basis I reached out to Robert – whom I’d never previously met – and invited him to make his presentation to the The Institute of Public Affairs at our office in Melbourne. With the resources of the Baillieu Myer Studio we had the opportunity to record and re-broadcast the presentation not just to engineers, but to all Australians with an interest in our energy future. The edited version - with slides expertly interleaved - was uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday and I’m pleased to say it’s already had more than 18,000 views. In my introduction to Robert’s presentation, I outlined the whole sorry saga of the original event’s cancellation. Robert then (it was late July) noted that he was still persevering with Engineers Australia, after what had been a long overdue revolt by its members against a head office purporting to issue edicts on approved climate and energy policy. I’m pleased to say that ultimately Robert has now been able to make his presentation to the Newcastle branch of EA (also reported by John Kehoe). Now  you can view it too, and share it with your friends. #nuclear #energyaustralia #energy #nem #auspol

Like commentators all over the world, I went looking for whatever I had said about Vance before he was announced as VP pick.

IPA Executive Director on our latest energy report: The Ruinous Cost of Free Energy: Why an electricity system built on renewables is the most expensive of all options.