Recent publications in IPA Backgrounder
The Uses and Value of National Parks: Does More Mean Worse?
Politicians are happy to lock up vast areas around the country as national parks, but are not willing to actually maintain them. Instead of continuously expanding the park area, we should be making better use of the parks we already have. "If we...
'Threats' to the Great Barrier Reef
Over the years, we have been told that coral-eating starfish, oil pollution, overfishing, fertilizer runoff, silt, agrichemicals, sewerage, anchor damage, people walking on the reef, ship groundings and global warming were each imminent threats to...
Informed Giving: Ensuring Charities inform Donors
Australia has a large investment in altruism. This Backgrounder explores a model for charity disclosure and regulation aimed at achieving an informed donor market.
When Will We Ever Learn?
Jim Hoggett and Aled Hoggett show why decades of poor policy based on a failed ideology are directly responsible for the horrific Australian bushfires in 2003.
Anti-American Biased Perspective: Your ABC and the Iraq War
This Backgrounder, written by two professional journalists with decades of experience between them, looks at the broader scope of the ABC’s coverage. Looking at transcripts freely available on the ABC’s...
Australian Aid Policy: A Case of Lose/Lose, not Win/Win
Australia’s aid programme is significant, particularly in the Pacific, totalling (in 2000–01 terms) around $50 billion since 1975. It also accounts for a significant and growing share of scarce national...
Myth and the Murray: Measuring The Real State of the Environment
We have all heard about the declining health of the Murray River, including poor water quality, dying red gums and threats to the continued survival of the Murray cod---this is the popular view in urban Australia. Along the river, communities...
Property Rights to Water: Effects on Agricultural Productivity and the Environment
If water rights are taken away without compensation, major incentives that power the economy’s well-being are undermined.
The Good Reputation Index: A Tale of Two Strategies
A fundamental objective of measuring corporate reputation is to regulate corporate behaviour. Faced with vocal constituencies who want to divert the corporation from its commercial objectives, the corporation can choose one of two strategies: to...
Petroleum Refining: Rationalization or Atrophy?
The Australian petroleum refining industry provides the fuel without which our economy and society could not function. It is an industry in trouble. It is fragmented and badly structured.
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