Archived publication for 2000 in IPA Backgrounder
Recent publications
NGO Way To Go
If NGO activism is to take its place within democratic society, it presumably has to be accountable for its actions. How this is to be achieved, and the nature of the relationship between government and civil society as represented by NGOs, is the...
Fit For the West: The Western Australian Approach to Labour Market Regulation
Given the importance of export markets—particularly for the capital-intensive mining industry—to the Western Australian economy, its labour market regulation needs to suit its export-focused economy.
Telecommunications in Regional and Remote Australia
In October of this year, the Telecommunications Service Inquiry report into service levels in the bush was released. The headlines flowing from this report were primarily to do with the implications for the full privatization of Telstra. The...
Education Reform: Who Should Control the Curriculum?
Over the last 10 to 15 years, education systems across the English-speaking Western world have sought to reduce the power of centralized bureaucracies and to give schools greater autonomy.
Regulating Biotechnology: Some Questions and Answers
Forty years ago James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the molecular structure of DNA and, from the early seventies, biotechnologists progressively learned more precise ways of introducing genes into plants and animals. Although by...
Biotechnology and Food: 10,000 Years of Sowing Seeds, 100 Years of Harvesting Genes
There are two great success stories of biological technologies in the twentieth century: the taming of infectious disease by antibiotics and vaccines, and the harnessing of genetic improvement in crops, epitomized by the Green Revolution.