Recent publications in IPA Backgrounder
Odd Bedfellows: The Economic Nationalists and Why They Are Wrong
Economic nationalism, if adopted in whole or in part, has the potential to do great damage to the Australian economy. It is based on a series of errors and fallacies which would greatly hamper the ability of most Australian households and firms to...
Betraying the Victims: The 'Stolen Generations' Report
The seriousness of the ‘stolen generations’ issue should not be underestimated, and Aborigines are fully entitled to demand an acknowledgement of the wrongs that many of them suffered at the hands of various...
Whither Labor?
This Backgrounder argues that Labor’s drive for economic reform began to stall by 1989 and that the electorate had grown tired of the difficult issues involved in that reform. Consequently, a gap opened up in public dialogue...
Soaking the Poor: Discriminatory Taxation of Tobacco, Alcohol and Gambling
Soaking the Poor is an apt description of the effects of very high taxes on a narrow range of products that tend to represent a greater share of the consumption of the less well-off. The taxes lift fully 10 per cent of the income of the poorest...