IPA oz bak

3/18 capt  forget main?

Climate science deniers and conservative media have found themselves a new “free speech” hero — an academic who is suing his own university and thinks the multiple <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2016/mar/30/link-between-fossil-fuels-and-great-barrier-reef-bleaching-clear-and-incontrovertible-say-scientists" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">human threats to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef</a> are overblown.

Professor <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/peter-ridd" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Peter Ridd</a> might be a new name to some, but the marine geophysicist has a long association with groups pushing denial of the well-established links between human activity and dangerous climate change.

Outlets including<a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/13/delingpole-australian-professor-sues-his-own-university-for-right-to-tell-the-truth-about-the-dying-great-barrier-reef/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);"> Breitbart</a> and <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/02/08/science-or-silence-my-battle-to-question-doomsayers-about-great-barrier-reef.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Fox News</a> have joined a steady flow of columns and interviews across Australia’s conservative media landscape covering Ridd’s case, sometimes handing over space to him in their column pages.

Each time, Ridd, of Australia's James Cook University, has been painted as a bastion of truth pushing back against the establishment. But how does that image hold up to scrutiny?

<h3 style=" font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Conservative Media Fawning</h3>

News Corp Australia’s political commentator and climate science denier-in-chief Andrew Bolt has been especially enthusiastic, writing multiple <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/university-disgrace-the-silencing-of-peter-ridd/news-story/59eadf2bc40b7afdb485e8cd01e81a43" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">blog posts</a> and <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/professor-charged-for-doubting-warming-alarmists/news-story/e289cfed8ab21e46b7ca7607b254d69e" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">columns</a>, inviting Ridd onto his Sky News show, and asking other stablemates to comment (News Corp columnist <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/terry-mccrann-leaps-back-to-top-of-the-class-for-climate-denial-82461/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">and climate science denier</a> Terry McCrann called for James Cook University’s executive to be “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theboltreport/videos/562372077454259/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">sacked immediately</a>”).

Ridd’s case, <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-great-barrier-reef-debate-submerged/news-story/6ebbfa8193e449b7e4c08eba8cdd6290" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">wrote Bolt</a>, was “not only about free speech,” but was an issue of “whether scientific debates are settled by censorship or by debate.”

“A mainstay of Western civilization is on trial here,” added Bolt, with no fear of overstatement.

Climate science denier James Delingpole of the hyper-partisan <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/13/delingpole-australian-professor-sues-his-own-university-for-right-to-tell-the-truth-about-the-dying-great-barrier-reef/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Breitbart</a> wrote that the “gagged” Professor Ridd had “plenty of solid scientific evidence” to show the reef was “doing just fine.”

<h3 style=" font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Examining Ridd's Case</h3>

So what’s actually been happening? Another, less hysterical way of looking at the case, is this.

Ridd has been happily criticizing the science linking dangerous climate change to greenhouse gas emissions, and the science showing the impacts of humans on corals, for <a href="http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6134" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">more than a decade</a>.

Ridd has also repeatedly, over many years, said that the impact of agricultural runoff and water quality on the health and growth rate of corals is overstated.

But his employer, James Cook University, initiated its own action against Ridd after he had criticized specific organizations at his own university in media interviews, saying they could not be trusted. This, the <a href="https://platogbr.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/paper-work-serious-misconduct-case_redacted_redacted-b.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">university alleged</a>, went against <a href="https://www.jcu.edu.au/policy/corporate-governance/code-of-conduct" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">the university’s code of conduct</a>.

So this is not about Ridd’s “freedom” to say what he wants, but is about an alleged breach of the university’s code of conduct — whether you agree with that code or not.

When the university censured Ridd in 2016, he ignored them. He gave an <a href="https://player.whooshkaa.com/episode?id=113918" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">interview in August 2017</a> to another climate science denier, Alan Jones, on Sky News. Ridd was there to talk about <a href="http://blackjay.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Ridd-P-Chapter-1-from-Climate-Change-The-Facts-2017-IPA.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">his chapter</a> in a <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/04/09/australian-climate-denial-think-tank-picks-cat-author-moonman-ken-ring-climate-expert" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">climate science denial book</a> produced by the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/institute-public-affairs" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Institute of Public Affairs</a> (IPA).

Ridd said “we can no longer trust” the government-backed Australian Institute of Marine Science and the Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, based at James Cook University.

The university alleged this constituted further “serious misconduct” so Ridd took the issue to his lawyers, and <a href="https://www.comcourts.gov.au/file/Federal/P/BRG1148/2017/actions" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">a case is proceeding</a>.

To help fund his legal bills, Ridd got some help from the IPA (a key organization pushing climate science denial in Australia for two decades) to set up a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/peter-ridd-legal-action-fund" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">crowdfunding campaign</a> that raised the necessary $95,000 in just 49 hours.

The IPA’s executive director John Roskam was the first donor with $500. Other notable givers included climate science denier blogger Anthony Watts, U.S. Interior Department employee and climate science denier Indur Goklany, Perth philanthropist and IPA funder Bryant McFee, and author and political scientist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Aitkin" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Don Aitken</a>. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/unlike-those-in-the-resistance-certain-career-officials-stars-have-risen-under-trump/2018/03/23/25bccddc-23de-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html?utm_term=.3aae877a65fc" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">The Washington Post</a> and others have reported how Goklany has had a key role in re-writing Department of Interior climate documents.)

Many of Ridd’s cheerleaders have taken his scientific claims without skepticism and have not entertained the idea that he might be wrong.

<h3 style=" font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Ridd’s Marine Pollution?</h3>

But Ridd repeated in detail several of his criticisms in a November 2017 “Viewpoint” <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X17309955" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">article in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin</a> — opening up his arguments for scrutiny.

Now, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/29/top-marine-scientists-defend-attack-on-great-barrier-reef-research" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">as reported in The Guardian Australia</a>, a team of nine scientists, many based at the Australian Institute of Marine Science and the James Cook University center Ridd has attacked, have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X18301425" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">issued a response through the same journal</a>. Their assessment of Ridd’s claims is sharp.

They say Ridd’s criticisms are based on “misinterpretation, selective use of data, and over-simplification” and that they ignore “formal responses to previously published critiques.”

While Ridd and his colleague Piers Larcombe argue their critiques are “largely ignored,” these researchers point out that in fact, many of Ridd’s arguments have been directly addressed in the scientific literature.

The Australian Institute of Marine Science researchers write: “To republish previous claims that have been addressed and refuted appears to be selecting information to support their statements and an example of the very issue <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X18301425#bb0285" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Larcombe and Ridd (2018)</a> are criticizing.”

<h3 style=" font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.28205em; margin-top: 1.28205em; margin-bottom: 1.28205em;">Ideological Bent?</h3>

Also in the 2017 Sky News interview, <a href="https://twitter.com/skynewsaust/status/892337964851712000?lang=ar" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Ridd accused others scientists of lacking objectivity and suggested another problem</a>was that “we also potentially have scientists with an ideological bent.”

This is the time to look at Ridd’s own “ideological bent” and his long history associating with climate science deniers whose “theories” are rejected by every major scientific academy on the planet, as well as governments around the world.

Ridd has been affiliated with several groups that reject the science linking human emissions of carbon dioxide to dangerous climate change.

Ridd is a director and “scientific coordinator” of the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF) — a group he has been <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20050623220333/http://aefweb.info/staff.php" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">associated with since its launch in 2005</a> (and not to be confused with the Australian Conservation Foundation).

The AEF, which emerged from a <a href="http://www.mannkal.org/downloads/submissions/sub20041102.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">2004 meeting organized by the Institute of Public Affairs</a>, promotes the idea that wind turbines make people sick and that human-caused climate change is unproven.

Ridd is also listed as an adviser to the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/galileo-movement" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Galileo Movement</a> — an Australian group that for many years was run by former One Nation Senator and climate science denier <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/malcolm-roberts" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Malcolm Roberts</a>.

Ridd joined a list of well-known climate science deniers in 2009 when he co-signed an <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090418125125/http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">open letter coordinated</a> by the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/cato-institute" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Cato Institute</a> — a U.S. “think tank” funded by petrochemical billionaires Charles and David Koch.

The letter ran as a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20090419173413/http://www.cato.org/special/climatechange/ClimateAd_ChicagoTrib_Rev.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">full-page ad in several newspapers</a>, including The New York Times, and claimed that recent temperature changes were “modest,” that the “case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated,” and global warming had stopped.

In 2011, <a href="http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=11455&page=0" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">Ridd called for a</a> “Scientific Challengers Office” that “should start on Global Warming” and “the supposed threats to the Great Barrier Reef.”

Ridd is based at the “Marine Geophysics Laboratory” and, according to his university research profile, he “raises almost all of his research funds from the profits of consultancy work which is usually associated with monitoring of marine dredging operation.”

Several <a href="https://www.jcu.edu.au/marine-geophysics-laboratory/services/consulting" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">major coal and gas projects are listed as former clients</a> of the lab, which was also home for the <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/01/22/veteran-climate-science-denialist-bob-carter-dies-heart-attack" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">late Dr. Bob Carter</a>who was, at one time, associated with 10 or more different climate science denial groups around the globe.

Ridd says he stands for “truth and honesty” and has “spent my whole life fighting for scientific truth.”

The problem is that the version of the “truth” he has been standing alongside, including his own arguments, have been repeatedly shot down by the world's leading scientific institutions. Despite this, and despite the howls of his supporters, Ridd remains free to voice his “truth.”

Main image: Peter Ridd speaking at an Institute of Public Affairs event. Credit: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3v5w6WXj4A" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(51, 153, 204);">YouTube screenshot</a>

</div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/23675" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">peter ridd</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/1132" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">james cook university</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/australian-institute-marine-science" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">australian institute of marine science</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/topics/centre-excellence-coral-reef-studies" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">centre of excellence for coral reef studies</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/institute-of-public-affairs" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">Institute of Public Affairs</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/cato-institute" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">cato institute</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4369" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">Australian Environment Foundation</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7033" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">galileo movement</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7472" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">malcolm roberts</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7470" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">andrew bolt</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4962" style=" text-decoration: underline; color: rgb(252, 211, 74);">James Delingpole</a></div>

</div>

===

capt

===

see hybird node?

==

<a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/26/marohasy-s-machine-learning-paper-gets-schooled">https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/08/26/marohasy-s-machine-learning-paper-gets-schooled</a>

This is a guest post by <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/ClimateDenierRoundup" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">ClimateDenierRoundup</a>

The big news in denierworld this week is obviously the <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">latest (and peer-reviewed) #ExxonKnew study</a>.

But before Exxon stole the spotlight on Tuesday, the newest paper of note in the Denivory Tower was one <a href="https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1VXfK7tTUKabVA" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">published</a> earlier this month in an obscure and <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/900111707149918208" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">soon-to-be discontinued journal</a>. T<a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/900111707149918208" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">h</a>e paper claims current warming is driven by natural forces, and is not uniquely human-caused.

Despite being based entirely on usually denier-derided computer modeling, the study was immediately–and lazily–championed by the climate denial fake news apparatus. Co-author <a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/08/big-data-finds-the-medieval-warm-period-no-denial-here/" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Jennifer Marohasy wrote about the study in an op-ed for the Spectator</a> and at <a href="http://jennifermarohasy.com/2017/08/recent-warming-natural/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">her own blog</a>; her description of her findings was uncritically copy-and-pasted into a <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2017/08/22/advanced-computer-models-suggest-most-global-warming-is-from-natural-forces/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Michael Bastasch story at the Daily Caller</a>, reposted <a href="https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/08/23/most-of-the-recent-warming-could-be-natural/" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">at WUWT</a> and <a href="https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/most-of-the-recent-warming-could-be-natural-jennifer-marohasy/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">TallBloke</a>, praised by <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/22/delingpole-global-warming-is-almost-entirely-natural-study-confirms/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">James Delingpole at Breitbart</a> and briefly linked to at Drudge (complete with an irrelevant photo of Al Gore).

Yet a quick <a href="https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/900130391796858881" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">fact check on science Twitter</a> shows <a href="https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/900366059072389121" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">the study’s conclusions are</a> “based on inaccurately cited data that's incorrectly scaled & incorrectly aligned in time.” What’s more, even if the authors had used the data correctly, it’s still “essentially just a complicated curve-fitting exercise,” as <a href="https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2017/08/22/machine-unlearning/#comment-101738" title="" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">And Then There’s Physics points out</a> in a short and simple debunking of this complicated exercise. Marohasy et al’s paper tries to use machine learning to find natural patterns in warming unrelated to carbon pollution, and admits that it doesn’t take actual real world physics into account. As And Then There’s Physics concludes, the study uses a “naive approach – that completely ignores [the] physics” that govern the climate system.

Given that the study itself admits as much, it’s a bit bizarre that the authors couldn’t have seen these many <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelEMann/status/900132805082001408" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">intelligent</a> criticisms about their artificial intelligence paper coming. Unless, of course, they did, and the allure of fawning fake news coverage and a convenient talking point about the denier-beloved Medieval Warming Period was just too great to resist.

There’s also the added bonus that the study was <a href="https://twitter.com/readfearn/status/900129020787908609" title="" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">funded by a denier and that the authors work</a> for an Australian <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_of_Public_Affairs" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">industry-funded think tank</a>. Doesn’t take any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, to deduce what’s going on here.

You can lead AI to denial, but you can’t make it think.

---

ref

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/blessed-are-the-sceptics/news-story/308d54429bd5649b80075e85da8ecae0

bs

...So what is this partnership between the Institute of Public Affairs and the University of Queensland to support environmental research about? What are we doing it for?

There are two main reasons.

First, to provide a haven for our scholars without ideological or commercial interference and with no prescription as to the end point of their inquiries. If they challenge orthodoxies and assumptions, particularly mine, then that's good. If they find that conventional wisdom is correct, then that's good, too.

The only criterion is to seek empirical evidence.

Second, it is important that any research that our scholars undertake is made available to aid the development of better, more rational public policy.

Good public policy means applying our resources more efficiently to achieve the outcomes we desire, such as lifting the poor out of their poverty, feeding the hungry, healing the sick and, in our case, managing our environment sensibly and productively.

I would like to think that what we have launched today is just the first step in something much bigger. I envisage that, in the future, to environmental lawyers and scientists we will add other disciplines: biologists, economists, statisticians, even philosophers. What we need to do is shine the hard light of reason and critical thinking on our environmental problems, aided by multiple skills and points of view.

As they say, from tiny acorns do mighty oak trees grow; or, to make the metaphor more geographically relevant, from tiny gumnuts do mighty river red gums grow.

That's all I have to say but I would like to leave you with one thought. For those of you have a feeling of despair about the direction that some aspects of environmental science is taking, remember that most people now believe that Galileo was right.

This is an edited version of a speech by Perth philanthropist Bryant Macfie, who is funding a research partnership between the Institute of Public Affairs and the University of Queensland.

---

https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/12/australian-mp-heading-las-vegas-heartland-institute-climate-denial-conference

AN Australian Federal MP is planning to join some of the world’s noisiest deniers of the science of climate change at a conference in Las Vegas in a few weeks time.

George Christensen, the National Party member for Dawson in the coal-friendly state of Queensland, will be hanging around the Mandelay Bay Resort with a rag-tag bunch of mostly long-retired academics and well paid think-tank associates for the <a href="http://desmogblog.com/heartland-institute" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland Institute</a> <a href="http://climateconference.heartland.org/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">conference</a>, starting on 7 July.

The Heartland Institute, funded over the years by fossil fuel corporations and conservative philanthropists, is itself one of America’s loudest climate science denial organisations. This will be the organisation’s ninth gathering of climate sceptics, denialists and fossil fuel apologists.

Before its 2012 conference, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/may/04/heartland-institute-global-warming-murder" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland took out a billboard advertisement</a> with a picture of terrorist and triple murderer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Ted “unabomber” Kaczynski</a> next to the words: “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?”

Just to push the envelope further, the institute <a href="http://heartland.org/press-releases/2012/05/03/do-you-still-believe-global-warming-billboards-hit-chicago" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">issued a press release</a> stating: “Of course, not all global warming alarmists are murderers and tyrants.”

Glad we got that one cleared up.

Christensen has put his own “sceptical” views on climate change on the record in the past.  He is not sure that humans can cause climate change.

In his <a href="http://www.georgechristensen.com.au/FixtheBruce/tabid/79/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/123/First-speech.aspx" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">maiden speech</a> to Australia’s Parliament, Christensen said: “Despite what the political and media elite tell us to think, the truth is the science on climate change is not settled.”

In November 2013, <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F0f5efc81-3e5b-496c-81dd-93d95de14659%2F0172%22" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Christensen told Parliament</a> that his doubts about climate change came from “the well-publicised antics” of climate scientists when thousands of private emails were illegally hacked from Britain’s the University of East Anglia and then published.

Numerous investigations into the so-called “climategate” affair found there had been no scientific misconduct, but this news obviously had not reached Christensen.

Christensen also promoted Heartland's climate change reports which he said were from “real climate scientists” and showed “the science is nowhere near to being settled”.

In <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2Fbb3ef167-e84b-40fc-bff9-814fb0e492d2%2F0166%22" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Parliament in February</a>, he downplayed a spate of “so-called record heat waves” by saying other parts of the globe had experienced “record cold”. In fact, <a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/news/ncdc-releases-january-2014-global-climate-report" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">according to the US National Climate Data Center</a>, January 2014 was the globe’s fourth hottest since records began in 1880 and was the “347th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average”.

I wanted to know more about Christensen’s trip to the Heartland conference and his views on climate change, so I emailed his press officer. Here’s what I asked.

1. Why are you attending the conference?

2. Right now, what are your own thoughts on the causes of climate change? Do you think humans cause it?

3.  How much of the conference will you be attending (you're down to speak on July 9) and how is the trip being financed?

4. How did your attendance come about?  Were you invited or did you ask to attend?

5. The Heartland Institute came in for criticism at its conference in 2012 with a billboard campaign featuring a picture of unabomber Ted Kaczynski beside the words “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?”. An accompanying press release stated : “The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.” What's your view of these sentiments and did they make you pause before deciding to attend this conference?

</blockquote>

When I chased up the email, Christensen’s media officer told me by phone he would not be responding to my questions. I was told there was “no point talking to a climate activist blog” and they could “not find anywhere where you have not pilloried the views of someone who does not think like you do”.

Ouch.

So where does Christensen get his ideas about climate change from?

One revealing document is <a href="http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/parliamentarians-reporting/docs/P31/CHRISTENSEN_George.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Christensen’s Parliamentary expenses report from 2012</a> listing 11 climate change and environmental policy books bought by his office.

Titles include The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled The World's Top Climate Scientists by Roy Spencer; The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is The Obsession With 'Climate Change' Turning Out To Be The Most Costly Scientific Blunder In History by Christopher Booker and Killing The Earth To Save It: How Environmentalists Are Ruining The Planet, Destroying The Economy And Stealing Your Jobs by James Delingpole.

Six of the books were bought <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/national-affairs/coalitions-climate-change-sceptic-choice-for-committee-seen-as-a-snub-for-hunt/story-fn99tjf2-1226138248389" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">two months before Christensen was appointed by the then opposition to sit on a key committee</a> to examine carbon price legislation.

Christensen’s office also bought 25 copies of Australian sceptic and mining entrepreneur Professor Ian Plimer’s book How To Get Expelled From School: A guide to climate change for pupils, parents and punters.

The previous government’s Department of Climate Change issued a <a href="http://www.climatechange.gov.au/accurate-answers-professor-ian-plimer" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">blow-by-blow rebuttal of Plimer’s book</a>, saying it was “misleading” and “based on inaccurate or selective interpretation of the science”.

<h6 style=" line-height: 2.23881em; margin-top: 2.23881em; margin-bottom: 2.23881em;">Viva Las Vegas</h6>

During the two-day Las Vegas conference, Christensen is scheduled to join <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-michaels" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Patrick Michaels</a>, of the Cato Institute and the author of another of those books, to present some awards.

Christensen is also listed to sit down with fellow Australians for a panel session on the “global warming debate in Australia”.

Christensen will be joined by one of his own constituents, Dr <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/bob-carter" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Bob Carter</a>, a “science policy advisor” for the Melbourne-based climate science denialist think tank the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).

Carter <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/09/australian-university-dumps-bob-carter-advisor-multiple-global-climate-science-denial-groups" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">advises more than a dozen climate science denialist organisations</a> around the world.

In February 2012, internal Heartland Institute documents revealed <a href="http://www.readfearn.com/2012/02/bob-carter-responds-to-heartland-leak/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Carter was to be paid $1667 a month for his work on its project</a> to produce reports to directly challenge the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Another panel member joining Christensen is Jennifer Marohasy, a former senior fellow with the IPA.

Marohasy is currently a research fellow at Central Queensland University — a post funded by the “B. Macfie Family Foundation”.

Bryant Macfie is a Perth-based philanthropist and climate science sceptic. In 2009 the university accepted $195,000 from Macfie and in 2012 the <a href="http://www.cqu.edu.au/_data/assets/pdf_file/0018/71415/CQUniversity-Annual-Report-2012.pdf" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">CQU annual report</a> said he had renewed his “significant support”.

In 2008, Macfie made a $350,000 gift to another university – the University of Queensland – that was facilitated by the IPAand criticised by some UQ academics.

When making the donation, Macfie claimed science had been damaged by “environmental activism” and wrote, “<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/blessed-are-the-sceptics/story-e6frgcko-1111116263665" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">the crucifix has been replaced by the wind turbine</a>”.

Marohasy was working for the IPA at the time and she defended the donation in a story in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/news/dispute-over-climate-sceptic-uni-grant/story-e6frg6oo-1111116267330" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none; letter-spacing: 0.03em; line-height: 1.5em;">The Australian</a>.

The final name to join Christensen on the conference panel is William Kininmonth, who is described as a “consulting climatologist with the Australasian Climate Research Institute”.

The “<a href="http://abr.business.gov.au/SearchByAbn.aspx?abn=81287283607" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Australasian Climate Research Institute</a>” is actually Kininmonth’s personal business trading name. It is an “institute” with no business premises, no employees and no website.

The Heartland Institute points out that Kininmonth was the head of the National Climate Centre at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology for 12 years from 1985 to 1998. While this is true, his job was largely irrelevant to the study of climate change.

The bureau itself has <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/australian-meteorology-bureau-corrects-record-former-research-head-william-kininmonth-s-actual-climate-change-experience" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">previously released a statement clarifying</a> that during Kininmonth’s tenure, the centre did not do any research on climate change and was instead mainly responsible for collecting observations of Australia’s rainfall and temperature.  The bureau said:

The processes and methodologies developed within the National Climate Centre have established that Australia has significantly warmed since 1910.  A warming trend was established and published by the National Climate Centre during the period of 1985 to 1998.

</blockquote>

Other notable <a href="http://climateconference.heartland.org/speakers/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Heartland climate conference speakers</a> include Patrick Moore, who Heartland bills as “Founder, Greenpeace” despite <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/about/history/Patrick-Moore-background-information/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Greenpeace making clear several years ago that Moore in fact wasn’t a founder</a>.

British climate science <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2013/sep/13/climate-change-science-minister-dennis-jensen-monckton-questionnaire" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">denialist and “birther”</a> Lord <a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton" target="blank" style=" text-decoration-line: none;">Christopher Monckton</a> will also take to the stage in Las Vegas.

There are lots of places where George Christensen could go to inform himself and his constituents on climate change. The Mandelay Bay Resort and Casino in the first week of July is not one of them.

</div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/16889">george christensen</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/821">Heartland Institute</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/622">bob carter</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/16890">las vegas</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/4367">Jennifer Marohasy</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/16891">bryant macfie</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/939">climate change</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/16892">2014 international climate chnage conference</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/tags/institute-of-public-affairs">Institute of Public Affairs</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/5718">William Kininmonth</a></div>

<div class="field-item odd" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/7181">Patrick Moore</a></div>

<div class="field-item even" style=" display: inline-block; margin-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/directory/vocabulary/1245">lord christopher monckton</a></div>

</div>

==

jewsih refugeee wwii

...In 1949, aged 20, he came to Australia as a Government-sponsored migrant and became a lumberjack in Manjimup.

"One of the local guys said to me, 'if you stay here you will be a plonker like me all your life', so he and the local sergeant of police helped me come to Perth and I went to night school to learn English," he said.

"I had various jobs after that, including as a union organiser, it was the first clerical job I had - maybe I shouldn't advertise that? In the finish, I decided Harry Hoffman and communism don't go together."

He married his wife Sylvia in 1953 and two children quickly followed. He went into real estate business in 1958.

He was starting to build a successful business when he found himself in court, accused of failing to declare an interest. After a drawn-out hearing, he was stripped of his real estate agent's licence.

The man who had started with nothing, now risked losing everything. With a young family to feed, in 1966 he decided not to reapply for his licence and instead became a developer, founding Ardross Estates. It was a life-changing decision.

With his wife running the office and Mr Hoffman concentrating on sales, subdivisions in Cockburn, Canning and Mundaring followed. Decades later, the company, now Ardross Holdings, is steadily approaching net assets of $1 billion. At 81, his company has embarked on its biggest project yet - a 10,000-block development at Jurien Bay.

Mr Hoffman regularly gives millions to charity, including the cause closest to his heart - education. "I was robbed of my educational opportunities, so I'm giving people the opportunities I did not have myself," he said.

A school at Carmel now bears his name. He is involved with Leadership WA and gives scholarships at Curtin University.

"My background was not making money. Knowledge, understanding, contributing to our future - that's what I really support," he said.

==

Big data finds the Medieval Warm Period – no denial here | The ...

<a href="https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/08/big-data-finds-the-medieval-warm-period-no-denial-here/">https://www.spectator.com.au/2017/08/big-data-finds-the-medieval-warm-period-no-denial-here/</a>

Big data finds the Medieval Warm Period – no denial here. Jennifer Marohasy · Jennifer Marohasy. 22 August 2017. 7:49 AM. 22 August 2017. 7:49 AM ...

Author: Jennifer Marohasy | The Spectator Australia

Author: Jennifer Marohasy on The Spectator Australia.

Price of electricity is rising, not sure about temperatures | The ...

Jul 13, 2017 ... Jennifer Marohasy is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs and has blogged at jennifermarohasy.com since April 2005. Got something ...

I'm a doubter — and a sceptic too | The Spectator Australia

===

Mark Steyn is a contributor to the book <a href="http://thefacts2014.ipa.org.au/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Climate Change: The Facts </a>published by the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_of_Public_Affairs" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Institute of Public Affairs</a> and featuring “22 essays on the science, politics and economics of the climate change debate.” The Institute of Public Affairs, while not revealing most of its funders, is known to have received funding from mining magnate Gina Rinehart and at least one major tobacco company. <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/mark-steyn#s18" style=" text-decoration: none;"> [18]</a>

The book includes essays and articles from a range of climate change skeptics, with contributors including the following:

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Alan_Moran" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Alan Moran</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/andrew-bolt" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Andrew Bolt</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/anthony-watts" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Anthony Watts</a></li>

<li>Bernard Lewin</li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-essex" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Christopher Essex</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/donna-laframboise" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Donna Laframboise</a></li>

<li>Garth W. Paltridge</li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/ian-plimer" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Ian Plimer</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/scott-armstrong" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">J. Scott Armstrong</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/james-delingpole" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">James Delingpole</a></li>

<li>Jennifer Marohasy</li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/joanne-nova" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Joanne Nova</a></li>

<li>John Abbot</li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/kesten-green" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Kesten Green</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/mark-steyn" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Mark Steyn</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/nigel-lawson" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Nigel Lawson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/patrick-michaels" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Patrick J. Michaels</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/richard-lindzen" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Richard S. Lindzen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/rm-bob-carter" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Robert M. Carter</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/ross-mckitrick" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Ross McKitrick</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/rupert-darwall" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Rupert Darwall</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/stewart-franks" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Stewart Franks</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/willie-soon" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Willie Soon</a></li>

</ul>

Editor Alan Moran summarized Steyn's contribution as follows:

Mark Steyn’s essay ‘Ship of Fools’ demonstrates how environmental activist, Professor Chris Turney inadvertently parodied Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic expedition. Turney had expected to see a path to the Pole cleared for his ship by global warming. After all, Al Gore had predicted an ice free Arctic by now. Instead, Turney’s Guardian backed expedition had to be rescued from expanding ice. A genuine scientist, as Turney claims to be, should have realised that Antarctic ice is expanding not increasing. <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/mark-steyn#s17" style=" text-decoration: none;">[17]</a>

</blockquote>

===

offesnive / CRC:

<h2>The campaign countering non-profits goes global</h2>

The ripple effects of the U.S. campaign to 'defund the left' have been felt around the world. A U.S. mining company succeeded in having <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=USAID" title="USAID" class="mw-redirect">USAID</a> funding for an Indonesian community group pulled. <a href="http://www.ips.org/" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.ips.org" rel="nofollow">[2]</a> A Fulbright scholarship to the U.S., helped the Senior Fellow at the Australian <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs" title="Institute of Public Affairs">Institute of Public Affairs</a> (IPA), <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gary_Johns" title="Gary Johns">Gary Johns</a> develop a good working relationship with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Enterprise_Institute" title="American Enterprise Institute">American Enterprise Institute</a> and escalate their emphasis on curtailing the activities of public interest groups.

The IPA themselves have targeted public interest groups in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Malaysia" title="Malaysia">Malaysia</a> and those working on issues in<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Indonesia" title="Indonesia">Indonesia</a>. In mid-June 2004 the conservative Australian government released a consultancy report by the IPA's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gary_Johns" title="Gary Johns">Gary Johns</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Roskam" title="John Roskam">John Roskam</a> proposing the first steps to reduce the access that non-government organisations have to government decision making. <a href="http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/aboutfacs/programs/community-managing_relations_with_ngo.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/aboutfacs/programs/community-managing_relations_with_ngo.htm" rel="nofollow">[3]</a>

In May 2002 Canadian PR consultant <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ross_S._Irvine" title="Ross S. Irvine">Ross S. Irvine</a>, who approvingly cites Johns views in his articles, was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand. In his presentation Irvine identified "charitable organization legislation", now before parliament, as one of the key focal points to consider in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=New_Zealand" title="New Zealand">New Zealand</a>.

In August 2004, the New Zealand Greens Green MP Sue Bradford warned that the proposed charities legislation "poses a real threat to one of the cornerstones of our democracy - the ability of people to come together and advocate for all manner of social, economic and environmental causes. Freedom of speech would be clouded because organisations that speak out on political issues would risk being deregistered by the Charities Commission." <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0408/S00321.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0408/S00321.htm" rel="nofollow">[4]</a>

In early September 2004, the Director General of the New Zealand Health Ministry, Karen Poutasi, sent a draft instruction to health and disability NGOs revealing that it was proposed that "the Ministry does not fund lobbying activity and such activity will not be included in any contracts". The instruction, however, did not propose that organisations would be excluded from government funding if funds raised from other sources were used for lobbying. See <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Intimidating_democracy/New_Zealand_Health_Ministry_memo_to_NGOs" title="Intimidating democracy/New Zealand Health Ministry memo to NGOs">Intimidating democracy/New Zealand Health Ministry memo to NGOs</a>for the full text.

==

Anthony Watts has finally written a promo for a book put out last month by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) (archived <a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">here</a>). The book is called, somewhat ambiguously: Climate Change the Facts 2014. Given the publisher and the contributors, the meaning is pretty obvious: Climate - change the facts - 2014.

<a id="more" name="more"> </a><a id="more" name="more">The IPA is one of the few right wing lobby groups in Australia that campaigns for action to increase global warming and climate change. It tends to be pro-fossil fuel and anti-mitigation of global warming. It panders to right wing science deniers. Although influential in some quarters, when it comes to climate, the IPA gets short shrift by most thinking people in this country. We Australians don't particularly want hotter temperatures, worse droughts, more catastrophic fires or bigger badder floods. Our climate already has more than enough of all that.

This new book looks like it's a follow-up to a </a><a href="https://ipa.org.au/publications/1957/climate-change-the-facts" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">2010 publication</a>, which included chapters by such luminaries (in the fake sceptic world) as Richard Tol, Nigel Lawson, Christopher Monckton, Willie Soon and Ian Plimer. I don't know if anyone read that book. This time the IPA has given their book more publicity, <a href="https://archive.today/x9bLU" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">right underneath a plea to support</a> alleged defamer Mark Steyn. Mark Steyn is heading for a tour down under, possibly fighting to extend freedom of speech beyond the acceptable, to embrace the right to defame, if his<a href="http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/08/25/why-defamation-suit-against-climate-denialists-is-the-right-move/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">track record</a> is anything to go by.

Will this latest version of "change the facts" get more readers than the IPA's first (freebie) book did? Maybe by charging for it this time around the IPA will get greater exposure and commitment from deniers.

Given that Anthony Watts wrote a chapter I was wondering why he waited so long to boast about it. The book came out a month or so back. Turns out Anthony was waiting till the book was available on Kindle. That's the only way he's getting any payment for his contribution, <a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-657.0-659.277" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">according to him</a>. (He doesn't say what his chapter is about. <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/12/denier-weirdness-russian-steam-pipes.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Russian steampipes</a>? <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/06/omg-its-insects-and-more-farce-from-wuwt.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Insects</a>?)

The IPA scoured the world for the more prominent climate science deniers and mixed them up with some less prominent and more wacky ones. The editor, Alan Moran, managed to get entries from the following:

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Ian "iron sun" Plimer who has been fairly quiet since his <a href="http://www.monbiot.com/2009/12/17/showdown-with-plimer/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">heaven and earth fiasco</a> (I sometimes wonder who really wrote that book)</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Patrick J Michaels - one half of Pat'n Chip from CATO, who argue that global warming will be okay because <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/heat-kills-patn-chip-argue-for-survival.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">we can just buy air conditioners</a></li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Richard Lindzen of the flawed <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Iris/iris2.php" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">iris hypothesis</a>, who spends time these days <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-scientists-take-on-Richard-Lindzen.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">talking climate science denial</a> to anyone who'll listen</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Willie Soon who has had to resort to lending his name to a paper by the <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/christopher-monckton-passes-childish.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">potty peer Christopher Monckton</a> and the <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/02/william-m-briggs-falsely-alleges-broad.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">ratbag William M Briggs</a> and scrounging funds from the Heartland Institute to publish some nonsense in a little known Chinese journal (not a climate science journal)</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Robert M Carter - an Australian who retired from his job as an academic to take up science denial <a href="http://www.readfearn.com/2012/02/bob-carter-responds-to-heartland-leak/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">for the Heartland Institute</a> and related organisations. He's recently "come out" <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/09/science-denier-bob-carter-comes-out-as.html" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">as an ice age comether</a>.</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John Abbott, who I've never heard of</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jennifer Marohasy, a denier from Australia who makes <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/09/remember-weather-at-rutherglen-bom-was.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">silly accusations</a> about the Australian Bureau of Meteorology when she's not campaigning against the environment in general</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Nigel Lawson, an ex-public servant, who <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/nigel-lawson-and-gwpf-is-confused-and.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">now heads up</a> an anti-mitigation, pro-global warming lobby group in the UK appropriately named the Global Warming Policy Foundation</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Alan Moran who works for the IPA (he, like Patrick Michaels, is just doing what he's paid to do)</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">James Delingpole, a sensationalist blogger, who doesn't do science and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xu3SQcIE0" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">describes himself </a>as an "interpreter of interpretations"</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Garth Paltridge, an ex-climate scientist turned global warming campaigner</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Joanne Nova, the pseudonym of Australian Jo Codling, an ex-children's television entertainer turned climate science denier who, with her partner the rocket scientist from Luna Park, promotes <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/nova-and-evans-present-forcex-it-would.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Force X and the Notch</a></li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kesten Green and Scott Armstrong, who write <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/10/speaking-of-fossil-fuel-funding.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">very dumb papers</a> claiming that the world isn't really warming or if it is it's "natural"</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rupert Darwall, who I've never heard of</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Ross McKitrick, an economics professor who keeps trying and failing to prove there aren't any hockey sticks in the world, or something</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donna Laframboise, who thinks that no scientist should be paid any mind if they write or achieve anything <a href="http://nittygrittyscience.com/2011/11/03/an-open-letter-to-donna-laframboise-or-you-have-got-to-be-f-kidding-me/" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">while they are younger than 40</a> - presumably including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Marie Curie</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Louis Pasteur</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Rutherford" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Ernest Rutherford</a>, or any of hundreds of other scientists who did some of their most amazing work when they were young - often before they received their higher degrees. (She wrote another "book" putting her <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/09/donna-laframboise-new-book-instructions.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">instructions on the cover</a>.)</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Mark Steyn, a sensationalist blogger/hack, who speaks of climate scientists with allusions to child molesters and is <a href="http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2014/08/25/why-defamation-suit-against-climate-denialists-is-the-right-move/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">being sued for defamation</a></li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Christopher Essex, about whom I know little except that he seems to be <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2013/08/28/world-federation-of-scientists-permanent-monitoring-panel-climatology-weirdness/" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">a one man organisation</a> that grandly calls himself the "World Federation of Scientists" and moves and seconds motions decrying climate science then carries these motions himself</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Bernard Lewin, another person I've never heard of</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Stewart Franks, an engineering academic from Australia who belongs to the same anti-environment organisations as Jennifer Marohasy (above)</li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em;">Anthony Watts, an american who runs a blog for science deniers and conspiracy theorists and who wonders if global warming is being caused by <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2013/12/denier-weirdness-russian-steam-pipes.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">Russian steam pipes</a></li>

<li style=" padding: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0.25em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Andrew Bolt, an Australian blogger who got his own television segment here. Similar to James Delingpole in that (so I've been told) he prides himself on his ignorance, confusing ignorance with independence.  His tone and language is usually a tad milder than James, but the sentiment is the same.</li>

</ul>

What a ragtag bunch. According to <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/plimer-leads-ipa-fund-raising-push-for-new-climate-denial-book-36586" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">RenewEconomy last year</a>, the book was to have been<a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/plimer-leads-ipa-fund-raising-push-for-new-climate-denial-book-36586" target="blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">mailed out hither, thither and yon</a> for free. (I've yet to receive my free copy.) People who aren't important enough to get a free copy and want to lap up nonsense like this have to pay for it. You'll have to cough up $AUD24.95 for a hard copy. You can pick up the Kindle version for a mere $US9.95.</div>

</div>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I first <a href="http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/02/taxpayer-funded-fake-sceptics-public.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">wrote about this</a> early last year when it was revealed that Australian taxpayers are helping to subsidise the book. (The IPA is registered as a non-profit organisation, therefore tax exempt. Also, donations to it are tax-deductible. This equates to a subsidy by Australian taxpayers. To rub salt in the wound, the IPA has over many years used the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as its freeby publisher. More subsidisation from Australian taxpayers.) </div>

</div>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Anyone who was dumb enough to donate $400 or more would get their name emblazoned for all to see on the back cover. So if anyone has donated more than $400 to get this silly little book published, feel free to let me know and I'll give you some more free publicity :)</div>

</div>

</div>

<h3 style=" margin: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From the WUWT comments</h3>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Quite a few commenters at WUWT are well aware that this book won't go anywhere. That most of the people who'll buy it are science deniers who want to have their wishes "confirmed" by other science deniers. John Francis wrote:</div>

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-1651.0-1677.92" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 4:50 pm</a>

Excellent book. I read it as soon as I got it on Kindle. If only the general public read it!</blockquote>

jon sutton seems to think the only way to get it out there is to give it away for free.

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-1759.0-1785.75" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 9:36 am</a>

I reckon this should be freely distributed……………… like the Gideon Bible :-)) </blockquote>

Tom J  likes the writing style of deniers:

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-2143.0-2169.600" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 10:11 am</a>

Is it just me? Is it just my biases? But it seems to me, just looking at that list of authors, that members of the skeptic community (gawd, how I hate that tribal generalization – but it is convenient) are hell’s bells better writers, and possess far better senses of humor (actually ‘better’ is an inaccurate term when the comparison is to, well … nothing) than the dour, self righteous, nose-in-the-air, humorless, screeds who populate the CAGW opportunistic industrial complex. I’ve enjoyed the clever humor of Michaels, the smoothness of McKitrick, and the others, and then, there’s … Mark Steyn. </blockquote>

pauline young doesn't think the freebies sent to Australian politicians had any impact:

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-2615.0-2641.117" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 6:56 pm</a>

A copy was sent to every member of the federal government in Australia….. sadly I don’t think it has had much impact. </blockquote>

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">George McFly......I'm your density  liked it so much he read it out loud to his poor wife.</div>

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-5767.0-5793.181" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 8:40 pm</a>

Great book Anthony. I got a copy a few weeks ago and have read it already, some chapters twice! One section I read out aloud to my wife….seriously clever and funny. Worth every cent</blockquote>

Phlogiston is missing someone

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-5251.0-5277.21" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 4:45 pm</a>

Where is Matt Ridley? </blockquote>

JDN notices the ambiguity of the title:

<blockquote class="tr_bq" style=" border-left-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-right-width: 0px; border-left-width: 1px; padding-right: 10px; padding-left: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://archive.today/RfV3H#selection-4689.0-4715.169" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none;">February 14, 2015 at 2:57 pm</a>

The alarmistas are always saying the skeptics want to “change the facts”, now it’s the title of their new book. Maybe you can hire an editor who knows how a ‘:’ is used. </blockquote>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Climate Change: The Facts</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">by J.Abbot (Author), J.S. Armstrong (Author), A.Bolt (Author), R.Carter (Author), R.Darwall (Author), J.Delingpole (Author), C.Essex (Author), S.Franks (Author), K.Green (Author), D.Laframboise (Author), N.Lawson (Author), B.Lewin (Author), R.Lindzen (Author), J.Marohasy (Author), R.McKitrick (Author), P.Michaels (Author), A.Moran (Author), J.Nova (Author), G.Paltridge (Author), I.Plimer (Author), W.Soon (Author), M.Steyn (Author), A.Watts (Author), Alan Moran (Editor)</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">An excellent new book --Barbara Kay, The National Post (Canada)</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">A fascinating new book --Matt Ridley, Quadrant (Australia)</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">A great gift for any friend with an open mind who enjoys a good read --Jay Lehr, PhD, The Heartlander</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">About the Author</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">The authors of Climate Change: The Facts number some of the most prominent dissenters from Big Climate alarmism, including scientists Richard S Lindzen and Willie Soon, recently targeted by grandstanding congressmen seeking to get them fired from their jobs; Nigel Lawson, Britain's former Chancellor of the Exchequer; Ross McKitrick, whose analysis inflicted irreparable damage on the famous global-warming "hockey stick"; and Mark Steyn, currently being sued by the creator of the self-same hockey stick, Michael E Mann, in a landmark free-speech case. Plus John Abbot & Jennifer Marohasy, Andrew Bolt, Robert M Carter, Rupert Darwall, James Delingpole, Christopher Essex, Stewart W Franks, Kesten C Green & J Scott Armstrong, Donna Laframboise, Bernie Lewin, Patrick J Michaels, Joanne Nova, Garth W Paltridge, Ian Plimer and Anthony Watts</div>

</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Paperback: 336 pages</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Publisher: Stockade Books; First edition (April 21, 2015)</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Language: English</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Stockade Books and The Institute of Public Affairs are proud to publish Climate Change: The Facts, featuring essays on the science, politics and economics of the climate change debate. Climate Change: The Facts features the world's leading experts and commentators on climate change. Highlights of Climate Change: The Facts include:</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Ian Plimer draws on the geological record to dismiss the possibility that human emissions of carbon dioxide will lead to catastrophic consequences for the planet. Patrick Michaels demonstrates the growing chasm between the predictions of the IPCC and the real world temperature results. Richard Lindzen shows the climate is less sensitive to increases in greenhouse gases than previously thought and argues that a warmer world would have a similar weather variability to today. Willie Soon discusses the often unremarked role of the sun in climate variability. Robert Carter explains why the natural variability of the climate is far greater than any human component. John Abbot and Jennifer Marohasy demonstrate how little success climate models have in predicting important information such as rainfall.</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Nigel Lawson warns of the dire economic consequences of abandoning the use of fossil fuels. Alan Moran compares the considerable costs of taking action compared to the relatively minor potential benefits of doing so. James Delingpole looks at the academic qualifications of the leading proponents of catastrophic climate change and finds many lack the credentials of so-called 'sceptics'. Garth Paltridge says science itself will be damaged by the failure of climate forecasts to eventuate. Jo Nova chronicles the extraordinary sums of public money awarded to climate change activists, in contrast to those who question their alarmist warnings. Kesten Green and Scott Armstrong compare climate change alarmism to previous scares raised over the past 200 years. Rupert Darwall explains why an international, legally binding climate agreement has extremely minimal chances of success. Ross McKitrick reviews the 'hockey stick' controversy and what it reveals about the state of climate science.</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">Donna Laframboise explains how activists have taken charge of the IPCC. Mark Steyn recounts the embarrassing 'Ship of Fools' expedition to Antarctica. Christopher Essex argues the climate system is far more complex than it has been presented and there is much that we still don't know. Bernie Lewin examines how climate change science came to be politicised. Stewart Franks lists all the unexpected developments in climate science that were not foreseen. Anthony Watts highlights the failure of the world to warm over the past 18 years, contrary to the predictions of the IPCC. Andrew Bolt reviews the litany of failed forecasts by climate change activists.</div>

</div>

</div>

</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">J.Abbot</div>

<div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=" font-family: ;">4.4 out of 5 stars 446</div>

</div>

==

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a right-wing, corporate funded <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tank" title="Think tank" class="mw-redirect">think tank</a> based in Melbourne. It has close links to the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liberal_Party_of_Australia" title="Liberal Party of Australia">Liberal Party of Australia</a>, with its Executive Director <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Roskam" title="John Roskam">John Roskam</a> having run for Liberal Party preselection for a number of elections. Following the 2007 federal election defeat for the Liberal Party, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Australian" title="The Australian">The Australian</a>'s journalist Christian Kerr noted that a new group of federal Liberal politicians were "receiving support from former Howard government staffer John Roskam" at the IPA.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-0" title="">[1]</a>

The IPA key policy positions include: advocacy for privatisation and deregulation; attacks on the positions of unions and non-government organisations; support of assimilationist indigenous policy (cf. the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bennelong_Society" title="Bennelong Society">Bennelong Society</a>) and refutation of the science involved with environmental issues such as climate change.

<tr>

<td>

<h2>Contents</h2>

[<a href="javascript:toggleToc()" class="internal" id="togglelink">hide</a>]</div>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#History">1 History</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Right_Wing.3F">2 Right Wing?</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Media_impact">3 Media impact</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Case_Studies">4 Case Studies</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#The_IPA_and_climate_change">4.1 The IPA and climate change</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#The_IPA_and_the_Murray_River">4.2 The IPA and the Murray River</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Associated_Events">5 Associated Events</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Funding">6 Funding</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Personnel">7 Personnel</a>

<ul>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Staff">7.1 Staff</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Former_staff">7.2 Former staff</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#IPA_Board">7.3 IPA Board</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Former_Board_Members">7.4 Former Board Members</a></li>

</ul>

</li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Contact_information">8 Contact information</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#Other_Sourcewatch_Resources">9 Other Sourcewatch Resources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#External_links">10 External links</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#References">11 References</a></li>

</ul>

</td>

</tr>

</tbody></table>

<h2>History</h2>

The IPA is a non-profit company, which has a restricted membership of 54 people. It was established in 1943 by <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=G._J_Coles&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="G. J Coles (page does not exist)">G. J Coles</a> and a group of businessmen based in Melbourne who appointed <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_Kemp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Charles Kemp (page does not exist)">Charles Kemp</a> as the first director. From the outset, it had close ties to the Liberal Party under its leader <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_Menzies&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Robert Menzies (page does not exist)">Robert Menzies</a>. Australian journalist Paul Kelly argues that the IPA's C.D. Kemp was “probably the principal architect of the original Menzies platform” ("The End of Certainty: The Story of the 1980s", p. 47).

The IPA was not influential again until the 1980s, when C.D. Kemp's son, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rod_Kemp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rod Kemp (page does not exist)">Rod Kemp</a> took up the leadership. Rod Kemp transformed it from a conservative organisation to a <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Neoliberal" title="Neoliberal" class="mw-redirect">neoliberal</a> one, funded mainly by major corporations groups, and pursuing a pro-free-market, pro-<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Privatization" title="Privatization">privatization</a>, pro-<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Deregulation" title="Deregulation">deregulation</a> and anti-union agenda.

According to Cahill (2004: 210) members of the IPA executive from 1976-1984 included <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_L._Elsum&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="David L. Elsum (page does not exist)">David L. Elsum</a>, Hon <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Vernon_Wilcox&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Vernon Wilcox (page does not exist)">Vernon Wilcox</a>, Sir <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frank_Espie&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Frank Espie (page does not exist)">Frank Espie</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Douglas_Hocking" title="Douglas Hocking">Douglas Hocking</a>, Sir <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Wilfred_Brookes&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Wilfred Brookes (page does not exist)">Wilfred Brookes</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Balderstone&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James Balderstone (page does not exist)">James Balderstone</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hugh_Morgan" title="Hugh Morgan">Hugh Morgan</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Peter_Bunning&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Peter Bunning (page does not exist)">Peter Bunning</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_Goode" title="Charles Goode">Charles Goode</a>.

Throughout the 1980's the IPA's primary focus was on issues such as economic policy, privatisation and industrial relations policy. It also dabbled in a few broader issues such as the role of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation" title="Australian Broadcasting Corporation">Australian Broadcasting Corporation</a> and the role of churches in public policy debates. It wasn't until 1989 that the IPA began to pay any sustained interest to environmental issues. Since then it has campaigned against the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, promoted the use of genetically engineered crops and defended the logging of native forests.

More recently, the IPA has been the driving force behind the establishment of a number of new non-profit <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Front_groups" title="Front groups">front groups</a>, including the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Australian_Environment_Foundation" title="Australian Environment Foundation">Australian Environment Foundation</a> - which campaigns for weaker environmental laws - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Independent_Contractors_of_Australia" title="Independent Contractors of Australia">Independent Contractors of Australia</a> - which campaigns for an end to workplace safety laws and a general deregulation of the labour market, and the ironically named <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Owner_Drivers_Australia" title="Owner Drivers Australia">Owner Drivers Australia</a>, which campaigns against safety and work standard for truck drivers.

Australian Prime Minister <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Howard" title="John Howard">John Howard</a>, in a speech to the IPA justifying the 2003 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Iraq_War" title="Iraq War" class="mw-redirect">Iraq War</a>, commented that "the Institute has played a role in shaping, as well as articulating, our nation’s values."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-1" title="">[2]</a>

<h2>Right Wing?</h2>

IPA Executive Director <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Roskam" title="John Roskam">John Roskam</a> has objected to the group being described as being "right wing". "We are many things – but 'right wing' is not one of them. Any combination of free market, liberal, conservative (on some issues), liberal/conservative, (even) libertarian (on occasion), would be an appropriate description of the IPA – but not right wing. Since when has being in favour of small government, lower taxes, and less government been 'right wing'?," he wrote in a letter to <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Crikey.com.au&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Crikey.com.au (page does not exist)">Crikey</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-2" title="">[3]</a>

In a letter in response, Niall Clugston described Roskam's argument as "disingenuous". "The left/right spectrum is best understood as denoting relative positions, and the IPA is certainly poles apart from anyone described as left-wing. By the way, a key characteristic of right-wingers is that they shun the label. Perhaps they should explain why that is."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-3" title="">[4]</a>

<h2>Media impact</h2>

Following the publication of a column in 2008 questioning the impact of think tanks such as the IPA, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chris_Berg" title="Chris Berg">Chris Berg</a>, the editor of the IPA's journal, IPA Review, responded:

<dl>

<dd>"Andrew Crook weirdly asserts that the Institute of Public Affairs has been 'effectively frozen out of the national debate' since Kevin Rudd won office. If being frozen out of the national debate is getting more than 200 op-eds published in the national media during the year and having had hundreds and hundreds media mentions and media appearances -- then we're pretty happy with that. We’re not doing too badly for an organisation with a budget of much less than $2 million."<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-4" title="">[5]</a></dd>

</dl>

<h2>Case Studies</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs/IPA_targets_non-government_organisations" title="Institute of Public Affairs/IPA targets non-government organisations">The Institute of Public Affairs/IPA targets non-government organisations</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs/The_IPA%27s_pro-nuclear_advocacy" title="Institute of Public Affairs/The IPA's pro-nuclear advocacy">The IPA's pro-nuclear advocacy</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>The IPA and climate change</h3>

In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, IPA Executive Director John Roskam confirmed the IPA's key role in supporting Australian climate sceptics. '"Of all the serious sceptics in Australia, we have helped and supported just about all of them in their work one way or another," he says, listing some prominent figures on the local circuit. "<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ian_Plimer" title="Ian Plimer">Ian Plimer</a> - we launched his book - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter" title="Bob Carter">Bob Carter</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jo_Nova" title="Jo Nova" class="mw-redirect">Jo Nova</a>, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_Kininmonth" title="William Kininmonth">William Kininmonth</a>."'<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-5" title="">[6]</a>

In 2008, the institute facilitated a donation of $350,000 by Dr G. Bryant Macfie, a climate change sceptic, to the University of Queensland for environmental research. The money, which was routed via the IPS, was to fund three environmental doctoral projects with the IPA suggesting two of the three agreed topics. George Bryant Macfie was described as a "medical doctor and philanthropist" and a "long-standing IPA member." Announcing the grant, Macfie complained that "environmental activism" was akin to a new religion infecting science. "The crucifix has been replaced by the wind turbine," he said. The topics for the research included an examination of agricultural practices and chemical usage and the effectiveness of banning tree-clearing in Australia as a way to store carbon.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-6" title="">[7]</a> At the time Macfie held 634,846 shares in Strike Resources Limited, making him one of the was a top 20 shareholders.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-7" title="">[8]</a> (By 2010, Macfie had increased his shareholding to 800,000 shares, representing .615% of the company's shares.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-8" title="">[9]</a>) Strike Resources is a Perth-based mineral exploration company which is seeking to develop an iron project in Peru and the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Berau_Thermal_Coal_Project" title="Berau Thermal Coal Project">Berau Thermal Coal Project</a> in Indonesia.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-9" title="">[10]</a>

<h3>The IPA and the Murray River</h3>

For all their talk of 'transparency' though, the IPA has beem embroiled in controversy over failure to disclose funders of its work. In June 2004 it was revealed that Australia's largest irrgation company, Murray Irrigation Limited, contributed $40,000 to the IPA. The IPA's environment unit director <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jennifer_Marohasy" title="Jennifer Marohasy">Jennifer Marohasy</a> played a critical role in persuading a government committee to overturn recomendations to increase the volume of water released into the Murray River. <a href="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" rel="nofollow">[1]</a>

However, Marohasy did not disclose the donation to the committee. When asked by the Australian Financial Review about the MIL donation, Marohasy would not confirm or deny whether she knew about the donation while writing her report or giving evidence to the committee. She said she did not take "an interest in who funds IPA".

IPA executive director Mike Nahan stated the donation did not affect the organisation's position. While Nahan stated in late 2003 that the names of donors would be revealed, the information is still not disclosed on the organisations website.

In June 2006, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Hetherington" title="Bill Hetherington">Bill Hetherington</a>, Chairman of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Murray_Irrigation_Ltd&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Murray Irrigation Ltd (page does not exist)">Murray Irrigation Ltd</a> from 1995 to 2005 - including the period when Murray Irrigation Ltd was a major funder of the IPA - was appointed to the IPA's board of management.

<h2>Associated Events</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Institute_of_Public_Affairs_Eureka_Forum" title="The Institute of Public Affairs Eureka Forum">The Institute of Public Affairs Eureka Forum</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Funding</h2>

The IPA has heavily relied on funding from a small number of conservative corporations. Those funders disclosed by the IPA to journalists and media organisations include:

<ul>

<li>Major mining companies - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=BHP-Billiton" title="BHP-Billiton" class="mw-redirect">BHP-Billiton</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Western_Mining_Corporation" title="Western Mining Corporation">Western Mining Corporation</a>;</li>

<li>Pesticides/Genetically modified organisms: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto" title="Monsanto">Monsanto</a>; and</li>

<li>A range of other companies including communications company Telstra, Clough Engineering, <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Visy&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Visy (page does not exist)">Visy</a>, and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=News_Limited" title="News Limited">News Limited</a>;</li>

<li>Tobacco companies - <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Philip_Morris" title="Philip Morris" class="mw-redirect">Philip Morris</a> (Nahan) and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=British_American_Tobacco" title="British American Tobacco">British American Tobacco</a> <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" rel="nofollow">[2]</a></li>

<li>Oil and gas companies: Caltex, Esso Australia (a subsidiary of Exxon)[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=SourceWatch:Citation_needed" title="SourceWatch:Citation needed">citation needed</a>] and Shell and Woodside Petroleum<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-10" title="">[11]</a>; and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry;</li>

<li>Forestry: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gunns" title="Gunns">Gunns</a>, the largest logging company in Tasmania; (Nahan 3)</li>

<li>Murray Irrigation Ltd - a major irrigation company contributed $40,000.<a href="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" rel="nofollow">[3]</a></li>

</ul>

In 2003, the Australian Government paid $50,000 to the Institute of Public Affairs to review the accountability of NGOs.<a href="http://www.oxfam.org.au/oxfamnews/december_2003/charities.html" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.oxfam.org.au/oxfamnews/december_2003/charities.html" rel="nofollow">[4]</a>

However, financial support for the IPA has diminished over the seven years from 1995-96 when the IA received $1.4 million to just over $669,000 in 2001-2002 (figures unadjusted for inflation).

Even <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rio_Tinto" title="Rio Tinto">Rio Tinto</a>, the conservative mining company, abandoned the IPA because of its strident advocacy against Aboriginal self-determination. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" class="external autonumber" title="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" rel="nofollow">[5]</a>.

<h2>Personnel</h2>

<h3>Staff</h3>

As of August 2011, the IPA website stated that the Board of Directors comprises:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-Pers-11" title="">[12]</a>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Roskam" title="John Roskam">John Roskam</a> - Executive Director</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hugh_Tobin" title="Hugh Tobin">Hugh Tobin</a>, Deputy Executive Director</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Andrew_Poon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Andrew Poon (page does not exist)">Andrew Poon</a>, Director, Finance and Administration</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ken_Phillips" title="Ken Phillips">Ken Phillips</a> - Director, Work Reform Unit</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alan_Moran" title="Alan Moran">Alan Moran</a> - Director, Deregulation Unit</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Louise_Staley&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Louise Staley (page does not exist)">Louise Staley</a>, Director, Food and Environment Unit</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Wilson" title="Tim Wilson">Tim Wilson</a> , Director of Climate Change Policy and the Intellectual Property and Free Trade Unit</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Liz_Griffiths&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Liz Griffiths (page does not exist)">Liz Griffiths</a>, Leader, Project North Australia</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sinclair_Davidson" title="Sinclair Davidson">Sinclair Davidson</a>, Senior Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Julie_Novak" title="Julie Novak">Julie Novak</a>, Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Richard_Allsop&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Richard Allsop (page does not exist)">Richard Allsop</a>, Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carolyn_Popp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Carolyn Popp (page does not exist)">Carolyn Popp</a>, Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Graham_Farebrother&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Graham Farebrother (page does not exist)">Graham Farebrother</a>, Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alastair_Berg&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alastair Berg (page does not exist)">Alastair Berg</a>, Researcher</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Asher_Judah&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Asher Judah (page does not exist)">Asher Judah</a>, Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Carter" title="Bob Carter">Bob Carter</a>, Emeritus Fellow, Science Policy Advisor</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bob_Champion&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Bob Champion (page does not exist)">Bob Champion</a>, Researcher</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Paterson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James Paterson (page does not exist)">James Paterson</a>, Researcher</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rob_Phayer&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rob Phayer (page does not exist)">Rob Phayer</a>, Researcher</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sabine_Wolff&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Sabine Wolff (page does not exist)">Sabine Wolff</a>, Researcher</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ted_Lapkin" title="Ted Lapkin">Ted Lapkin</a>, Director, IPA Freedom Project</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Hyde&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John Hyde (page does not exist)">John Hyde</a> - Emeritus Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chris_Berg" title="Chris Berg">Chris Berg</a> - Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jason_Briant" title="Jason Briant">Jason Briant</a> - Research Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_Switzer" title="Tom Switzer">Tom Switzer</a>, Adjunct Fellow</li>

</ul>

<h3>Former staff</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Georgina_Hamilton&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Georgina Hamilton (page does not exist)">Georgina Hamilton</a> - Client Services Manager</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mike_Nahan" title="Mike Nahan">Mike Nahan</a> - Senior Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jennifer_Marohasy" title="Jennifer Marohasy">Jennifer Marohasy</a> - Director, Environment Unit</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jim_Hoggett&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Jim Hoggett (page does not exist)">Jim Hoggett</a> - Senior Fellow</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Andrew_McIntyre" title="Andrew McIntyre">Andrew McIntyre</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Des_Moore" title="Des Moore">Des Moore</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Chris_Ulyatt" title="Chris Ulyatt">Chris Ulyatt</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Gary_Johns" title="Gary Johns">Gary Johns</a></li>

<li>Dame <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leonie_Kramer" title="Leonie Kramer">Leonie Kramer</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Stone" title="John Stone">John Stone</a></li>

</ul>

<h3>IPA Board</h3>

As of August 2011, the IPA website stated that the Board of Directors comprises:<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-Pers-11" title="">[12]</a>

<ul>

<li>John Roskam, Executive Director</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Rod_Kemp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Rod Kemp (page does not exist)">Rod Kemp</a>, Chairman. Kemp took over the role from Alan Stockdale on August 1, 2008.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-12" title="">[13]</a></li>

<li>Mr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Harold_Clough" title="Harold Clough">Harold Clough</a>, Director. Clough is also the Treasurer of the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group" title="Lavoisier Group">Lavoisier Group</a>.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_note-13" title="">[14]</a></li>

<li>Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Duncan" title="Tim Duncan">Tim Duncan</a> - (former Head of External Affairs, Rio Tinto)</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Folie&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Folie (page does not exist)">Michael Folie</a>, Director.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Hickinbotham&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Hickinbotham (page does not exist)">Michael Hickinbotham</a>, Director.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Kroger&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Kroger (page does not exist)">Michael Kroger</a>, Director.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Maurice_O%27Shannassy&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Maurice O'Shannassy (page does not exist)">Maurice O'Shannassy</a>, Director.</li>

<li>Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Folie&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Folie (page does not exist)">Michael Folie</a> -</li>

<li>Mr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_Morgan&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="William Morgan (page does not exist)">William Morgan</a> - son of Hugh Morgan of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Lavoisier_Group" title="Lavoisier Group">Lavoisier Group</a>, ex Western Mining Corporation</li>

<li>Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tom_Quirk" title="Tom Quirk">Tom Quirk</a>, Director.</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bill_Hetherington" title="Bill Hetherington">Bill Hetherington</a>, Director.</li>

</ul>

<h3>Former Board Members</h3>

<ul>

<li>Mr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Alan_Stockdale&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Alan Stockdale (page does not exist)">Alan Stockdale</a> - until August 1, 2008 Chairman (Former Liberal Treasurer of Victoria)</li>

<li>Mr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_Clough" title="William Clough">William Clough</a> -</li>

<li>*Dr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Robert_Officer&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Robert Officer (page does not exist)">Robert Officer</a> - Treasurer</li>

<li>Mr. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ian_Nethercote" title="Ian Nethercote">Ian Nethercote</a> - (CEO of Loy Yang Power)</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Charles_Goode" title="Charles Goode">Charles Goode</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nobby_Clark&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Nobby Clark (page does not exist)">Nobby Clark</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Hugh_Morgan" title="Hugh Morgan">Hugh Morgan</a></li>

<li>Sir <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Balderstone&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="James Balderstone (page does not exist)">James Balderstone</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_J._Brydon&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="David J. Brydon (page does not exist)">David J. Brydon</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Calvert_Jones&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John Calvert Jones (page does not exist)">John Calvert Jones</a></li>

<li>J. F. H. Clark</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_C._Dahlsen&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="John C. Dahlsen (page does not exist)">John C. Dahlsen</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bruce_Scott_Dyson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Bruce Scott Dyson (page does not exist)">Bruce Scott Dyson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=G.E.Littlewood&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="G. E. Littlewood (page does not exist)">G. E. Littlewood</a></li>

<li>Professor <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=David_Pennington&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="David Pennington (page does not exist)">David Pennington</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Eda_Ritchie&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Eda Ritchie (page does not exist)">Eda Ritchie</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_B._Robinson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael B. Robinson (page does not exist)">Michael B. Robinson</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Robinson&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Michael Robinson (page does not exist)">Michael Robinson</a> - Former IPA Chairman & current Chairman of <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tabcorp&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="Tabcorp (page does not exist)">Tabcorp</a></li>

</ul>

<h2>Contact information</h2>

The Institute of Public Affairs

Level 2, 410 Collins Street

Melbourne VIC 3000

AUSTRALIA

Phone: (03) 96004744

Fax: (03) 9602 4989

Web: <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au" class="external free" title="http://www.ipa.org.au" rel="nofollow">http://www.ipa.org.au</a>

<h2>Other Sourcewatch Resources</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Great_Australian_Dream_Project" title="The Great Australian Dream Project">The Great Australian Dream Project</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=The_Institute_of_Public_Affairs_and_Telstra&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="The Institute of Public Affairs and Telstra (page does not exist)">The Institute of Public Affairs and Telstra</a></li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_tanks" title="Think tanks">Think tanks</a>

</li>

<li><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Think_Tanks/Australia" title="Think Tanks/Australia">Think Tanks/Australia</a>

</li>

</ul>

<h2>External links</h2>

<ul>

<li>Alex Carey, "<a href="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25/006.html" class="external text" title="http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/25/006.html" rel="nofollow">Taking the Risk out of Democracy: Propaganda in the US and Australia</a>", University of NSW Press, 1995.</li>

<li>Georgina Murray and Douglas Pacheco, "<a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/thinktanks.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/interventions/thinktanks.htm" rel="nofollow">Think tanks in the 1990s</a>", accessed May 2006. (This article is based on "The Economic Liberal Ideas Industry: Australasian Pro-Market Thinks Tank in the 1990s", Journal of Social Issues, May 2000.)</li>

<li>Mike Nahan, "The IPA sings its own song", The Australian, April 10, 2000. (This letter was in response to a letter criticising the IPA for accepting funding from tobacco companies).</li>

<li>Jim Hoggett, "<a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/Speechesandsubmssns/jimcharitiessub.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ipa.org.au/Speechesandsubmssns/jimcharitiessub.html" rel="nofollow">Inquiry Into the Definition of Charities and Related Organizations</a>", Institute of Public Affairs, January 19, 2001.</li>

<li>Endnote to Mike Nahan (2), "National value destroyed", Australian Financial Review, April 24, 2001.</li>

<li>Department of Family and Community Services, "<a href="http://www.facs.gov.au/annreport_2002-03/volume02/part3/04_consultants.htm#table086" class="external text" title="http://www.facs.gov.au/annreport_2002-03/volume02/part3/04_consultants.htm#table086" rel="nofollow">FACS Annual Report 2002-2003</a>", Volume 2, 2003, page 284.</li>

<li>Mike Nahan, "<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2003/08/07/1060145797302.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2003/08/07/1060145797302.html" rel="nofollow">'Charities' that are really political lobbyists must be exposed</a>", The Age (Melbourne), August 8, 2003.</li>

<li>Bob Burton, "Conservative Group to Advise Gov't on Accrediting NGOs", Inter-Press Service, August 9, 2003.</li>

<li>Brad Norington, "<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2003/08/11/1060588322537.htm" rel="nofollow">The deep pockets behind deep thought</a>", Sydney Morning Herald, August 12, 2003.</li>

<li>Endnote to Mike Nahan (3), "Don't give in to brand-mail", Australian Financial Review, August 28, 2003, page 63.</li>

<li>Damien C. Cahill, "The radical neo-liberal movement as a hegemonic force in Australia, 1976-1996", University of Wollongong, PhD Thesis, 2004. (Available online from all Australian Universities)</li>

<li>Bob Burton, "<a href="http://ipsnews.net/africa/print.asp?idnews=23243" class="external text" title="http://ipsnews.net/africa/print.asp?idnews=23243" rel="nofollow">Calls to Reign in NGOs Dismissed by Critics</a>", Inter-Press Service, April 9, 2004.</li>

<li>Stan Correy, "<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s1078182.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s1078182.htm" rel="nofollow">Watching the watchers</a>", Background Briefing, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Radio National, March 28, 2004.</li>

<li>Annabel Day, "<a href="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" class="external text" title="http://afr.com/premium/articles/2004/06/03/1086203561119.html" rel="nofollow">Queries on $40,000 IPA gift</a>", Australian Financial Review, June 4, 2004.</li>

<li>Jim Hogget, Alan Moran and Mike Nahan, "<a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/Media/ipaafr210904.html" class="external text" title="http://www.ipa.org.au/Media/ipaafr210904.html" rel="nofollow">A Green vote is a vote for economic vandalism</a>", Australian Financial Review, September 21, 2004.</li>

<li>Rohan Wenn, "<a href="http://seven.com.au/todaytonight/story/?id=19600" class="external text" title="http://seven.com.au/todaytonight/story/?id=19600" rel="nofollow">Churches making a tax-free profit</a>", Today Tonight, Channel 7, March 23, 2005.</li>

<li>"<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rural/programs/nrn/content/2005/s1343484.htm" class="external text" title="http://www.abc.net.au/rural/programs/nrn/content/2005/s1343484.htm" rel="nofollow">Projects at risk from funding cap say environmental groups</a>", ABC Rural, April 12, 2004.</li>

<li>Glenn Milne, "<a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15000123%5E7583,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15000123%5E7583,00.html" rel="nofollow">Uncharitable clampdown</a>", The Australian, April 18, 2005.</li>

<li>Rowan Callick, "<a href="http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=afr&kw=%22Institute+of+Public+Affairs%22&pb=afr&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=AFR0506161M7B22GK9MH" class="external text" title="http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=afr&kw=%22Institute+of+Public+Affairs%22&pb=afr&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=10&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=AFR0506161M7B22GK9MH" rel="nofollow">Meet the newest compassionate conservative</a>", Australian Financial Review, June 6, 2005. (Sub req'd.)</li>

<li>Ewin Hannan and Shaun Carney, "<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/thinkers-of-influence/2005/12/09/1134086810518.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2" class="external text" title="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/thinkers-of-influence/2005/12/09/1134086810518.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2" rel="nofollow">Thinkers of influence</a>", The Age, December 10, 2005.</li>

<li>Barrie Pittock, "<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/in-global-warming-war-may-market-forces-be-with-you/2006/01/13/1137118970711.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/in-global-warming-war-may-market-forces-be-with-you/2006/01/13/1137118970711.html" rel="nofollow">In global warming war, may market forces be with you</a>", The Age, January 14, 2006.</li>

<li>Dennis Glover, "<a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19115048-28737,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19115048-28737,00.html" rel="nofollow">Ideas with currency</a>", The Australian, May 13, 2006.</li>

<li>John Roskam, "<a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070316-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070316-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" rel="nofollow">Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups</a>", Crikey.com.au, March 16, 2007.</li>

<li>Niall Clugston, "<a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070319-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070319-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" rel="nofollow">Comments, corrections, clarifications, and c*ckups</a>", Crikey.com.au, March 19, 2007.</li>

<li>William Birnbauer, "<a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-hard-sell-on-modified-foods/2007/05/19/1179497342307.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-hard-sell-on-modified-foods/2007/05/19/1179497342307.html" rel="nofollow">Now for the hard sell on modified foods</a>", The Age, May 20, 2007.</li>

<li>John Kerin, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24961161-30538,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24961161-30538,00.html" rel="nofollow">"Tougher penalties for price fixers warranted"</a>, The Australian, January 26, 2009. (This article is a scathing critique of the IPA report The adverse effects of government actions against cartels).</li>

</ul>

<h2>References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-0" title="">↑</a> Christian Kerr, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24700742-5013871,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24700742-5013871,00.html" rel="nofollow">"Liberals' growing hunger"</a>, The Australian, November 25, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-1" title="">↑</a> John Howard, <a href="http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech878.html" class="external text" title="http://www.pm.gov.au/news/speeches/speech878.html" rel="nofollow">"Address to the Institute of Public Affairs, The Australian Club, Melbourne"</a>, May 19, 2004. (This is archived in the Internet Archive).</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-2" title="">↑</a> John Roskam, <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070316-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070316-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" rel="nofollow">"Re. 'Tabcorp board – too few doing too much'"</a>, Crikey, March 16, 2007.</li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-3" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070319-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crikey.com.au/Comments/20070319-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" rel="nofollow">Letter to the editor"</a>, Crikey, March 19, 2007.</li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-4" title="">↑</a> Chris Berg, <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Your-Say/20081215-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" class="external text" title="http://www.crikey.com.au/Your-Say/20081215-Comments-corrections-clarifications-and-cckups.html" rel="nofollow">"Think tanks"</a>, Crikey, December 15, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-5"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-5" title="">↑</a> Ben Cubby and Antony Lawes, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-benefit-of-the-doubt-20100507-ujof.html" class="external text" title="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-benefit-of-the-doubt-20100507-ujof.html" rel="nofollow">"The benefit of the doubt"</a>, Sydney Morning Herald, May 8, 2010.</li>

<li id="cite_note-6"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-6" title="">↑</a> Andrew Trounson and Greg Roberts, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23657735-11949,00.html" class="external text" title="http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23657735-11949,00.html" rel="nofollow">"Dispute over climate sceptic uni grant"</a>, The Australian, May 7, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-7"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-7" title="">↑</a> Strike Resources, <a href="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/media/files/20081014_SRK_2008_Annual_Report.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/media/files/20081014_SRK_2008_Annual_Report.pdf" rel="nofollow">"2008 Annual Report"</a>, October 2008, page 99.</li>

<li id="cite_note-8"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-8" title="">↑</a> Strike Resources, <a href="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/media/files/20101029%20SRK%20Annual%20Report%20ASX%20Lodgement%20Copy.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/media/files/20101029%20SRK%20Annual%20Report%20ASX%20Lodgement%20Copy.pdf" rel="nofollow">"2010 Annual Report"</a>, November 2010, page 91.</li>

<li id="cite_note-9"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-9" title="">↑</a> Strike Resources, <a href="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/" class="external text" title="http://www.strikeresources.com.au/" rel="nofollow">"Company Overview"</a>, Strike Resources website, accessed August 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-10"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-10" title="">↑</a> Mike Nahan, <a href="http://dspacedemo.intersearch.com.au/jspui/handle/1/242702" class="external text" title="http://dspacedemo.intersearch.com.au/jspui/handle/1/242702" rel="nofollow">"National value destroyed"</a>, Australian Financial Review, April 24, 2011, page 66.</li>

<li id="cite_note-Pers-11">↑ <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-Pers_11-0" title="">12.0</a> <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-Pers_11-1" title="">12.1</a> Institute of Public Affairs, <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/people" class="external text" title="http://www.ipa.org.au/people" rel="nofollow">"People and Associates"</a>, Institute of Public Affairs website, accessed August 2011.</li>

<li id="cite_note-12"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-12" title="">↑</a> Institute of Public Affairs, <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1216342080_document_new_chairman.pdf" class="external text" title="http://www.ipa.org.au/library/publication/1216342080_document_new_chairman.pdf" rel="nofollow">"Rod Kemp: Appointed Chairman of Institute of Public Affairs"</a>, Media Release, July 18, 2008.</li>

<li id="cite_note-13"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Institute_of_Public_Affairs#cite_ref-13" title="">↑</a> <a href="http://www.lavoisier.com.au/lavoisier-about.php" class="external text" title="http://www.lavoisier.com.au/lavoisier-about.php" rel="nofollow">"About The Lavoisier Group"</a>, Lavoisier Group website, accessed August 2008.</li>

</ol>

</div>

<tr>

<td colspan="4" class="tobaccoFormHead">Search the Documents Archives of the Tobacco Industry</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td class="tobaccoFormItem" valign="baseline">Legacy Tobacco Documents Library:</td>

</td>

</tr>

</tbody></table>

</div>

<div id="mw-normal-catlinks"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Special:Categories" title="Special:Categories">Categories</a>: <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Coal_Issues" title="Category:Coal Issues">Coal Issues</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Energy" title="Category:Energy">Energy</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Tobaccowiki" title="Category:Tobaccowiki">Tobaccowiki</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:All_articles_with_unsourced_statements" title="Category:All articles with unsourced statements">All articles with unsourced statements</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Articles_with_unsourced_statements" title="Category:Articles with unsourced statements">Articles with unsourced statements</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Think_tanks" title="Category:Think tanks">Think tanks</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Australia" title="Category:Australia">Australia</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Tobacco_documents_organizations" title="Category:Tobacco documents organizations">Tobacco documents organizations</a> | <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Co-sponsor_of_the_Heartland_Institute%27s_International_Conference_on_Climate_Change_%282009%29" title="Category:Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change (2009)">Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change (2009)</a></div>

</div>

Last week's <a href="http://desmogblog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy">revelations</a> about the Heartland Institute, probably the most important climate science denying organisation in the United States, raise some questions about the murky influence of think tanks on the climate debate in this country.

Confidential documents from the Heartland Institute reveal how wealthy individuals have actively promoted the campaign to attack the credibility of the world's top climate scientists and create the impression that there is a controversy about the main propositions of global warming science.

In fact the bulk of Heartland's climate science denial campaign - which includes plans to promote anti-science in schools - has been funded by one donor, whose name did not appear in the purloined documents.

There is a direct Australian link in the Heartland Institute files. Bob Carter, an adjunct research professor at James Cook University, has a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/nov/30/climate-change-sceptic-bob-carter">long-standing record</a> of denying climate science. Now it is revealed that he is on the payroll of the Heartland Institute, to the tune of $1,667 per month for unspecified work. On his <a href="http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eglrmc/">personal webpage</a>, Carter declares that "he receives no research funding from special interest organisations such as environmental groups, energy companies or government departments," a claim that on the scale of truth matches his reporting of climate science.

Carter is also a fellow at the right-wing Melbourne think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), which has for many years been the principal originator of anti-climate science propaganda in this country. The IPA is closely linked to the Heartland Institute, not least through its sponsorship of two of its recent conferences.

The secret funding of the Heartland Institute once again focuses attention on the financing of the IPA and particularly it sustained attacks on climate science and all policies aimed at cutting Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

The IPA is notoriously secretive about its sources of funding. Its senior staff have refused to answer journalists' questions, although over the years enough information has leaked out to suggest that much of its funding has come from the oil and mining industries, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs">including</a> Exxon, Shell, Caltex and BHP-Billiton.

The IPA's executive director John Roskam, who used to work for Rio Tinto, <a href="http://stage.fw.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/bid-to-force-thinktank-to-declare-backers/2434521.aspx">has said</a> that donors to the Institute want to remain anonymous because they "have been intimidated because of their supposed support for us".

The IPA's coyness is all the more hypocritical because a few years ago it launched a sustained attack on NGOs by claiming they were unaccountable, unrepresentative and not worthy of charitable status. The demand for transparency applies to everyone but itself.

Despite its refusal to divulge, we can make a good guess at where a large part of its recent funding has come from - right-wing mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

In August 2010 the Institute's magazine carried a <a href="http://www.ipa.org.au/sectors/deregulation-unit/publication/1852/unleash-the-north">prominent article</a> by one of its staff titled "Unleash the North". It advocated the creation of a special economic zone to cover the northern half of the continent where companies would have lower levels of regulation, cheap labour could be imported from developing countries and tax rates would be cut.

This proposal exactly parallels Gina Rinehart's campaign for a special economic zone in northern Australia where companies like hers could enjoy special privileges. She has set up a lobby group called Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (<a href="http://www.andev-project.org/">ANDEV</a>) to promote the idea.

Within months the Institute had established a new ‘North Australia Project', with its own <a href="http://anewnorth.ipa.org.au/2011/05/hello-world/">website</a>, and from May 2011 began churning out media releases promoting the special economic zone, beginning with a "landmark Galaxy poll" that purported to show that 60 per cent of Australians "think Canberra is out of touch with Northern Australia".

(In a move that shows polling groups will pose the most absurd questions if paid enough to do so, Galaxy asked whether "in your opinion, do decision makers in Canberra understand the needs of families and businesses living in Northern Australia?" as if the average punter is au faitwith the needs of families and businesses in semi-tropical Australia and equally well-informed what "Canberra" thinks about it.)

The new director of the North Australia Project, Hugh Tobin, declared:

The government should put in place a Special Economic Zone in Northern Australia. A low tax, low regulation zone would drive continued long term investment in the Australian resource industry.

</blockquote>

John Roskam also began <a href="http://anewnorth.ipa.org.au/2011/06/ideas-for-a-new-north-weekly-email/">spruiking</a> the marvels of Rinehart's northern zone.

Subsequent media releases warned of an out-of-touch Canberra, the danger of falling iron ore prices, the fragility of the resources boom, skills shortages, and the need to cut taxes and simplify regulation. They call for a "business friendly", "low tax, low regulation Special Economic Zone". The IPA's outpourings have been reproduced in mining industry magazines and will undoubtedly soon be echoed by right-wing newspaper columnists.

If the words in the media releases were not dictated down the phone by Gina Rinehart, then they could have been. I would be willing to bet $1,000 that she is now a major funder of the Institute of Public Affairs. In fact, the IPA has admitted that it is "working with Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision", Rinehart's lobby group.

In June 2011 <a href="http://anewnorth.ipa.org.au/2011/06/landmark-poll-on-australias-centralised-government/">the IPA said</a> it was conducting a series of seminars throughout Northern Australia to "build the case for, and gather input into the establishment of a Northern SEZ". It has taken Bob Carter to Weipa, Kunanurra, Darwin, Broome, Mount Isa and several more towns.

Clearly, like its long-running involvement in the climate debate, the IPA is conducting a political campaign, which brings us directly to the question of whether the Institute is abiding by the laws under which it operates as a deductible gift recipient.

In 1987 the IPA restructured itself as a company limited by guarantee, which means that its directors are not liable for any debts it might incur. The restructure enabled it to apply to become an Approved Research Institute (ARI) and thus be eligible for endorsement as a deductible gift recipient (DGR). In other words, donors to the Institute would be able to claim a tax deduction for their donations. DGR status is the most valuable asset of an organisation like the IPA because without it virtually no-one would donate.

In order for the IPA to become a DGR it had to apply to the Secretary of what is now the Federal Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research giving various undertakings.

Most importantly, it had to undertake to use all tax-deductible donations exclusively for scientific research, <a href="http://www.ato.gov.au/content/00236763.htm">more particularly</a>, "scientific research which is, or may prove to be, of value to Australia". In this context, the authorities have ruled that "scientific research" includes social scientific research.

The IPA also had to undertake to create a separate bank account into which all tax-deductible gifts must be deposited. The Institute's financial statements show that it keeps some of its cash in an account called "NAB Research Account". On June 30, 2010 it held $385,647.

It must also ensure that all disbursements from this research account are evaluated and approved by "a suitably qualified research committee" of at least five members, the majority of whom are appropriately qualified in the field of research that is to be undertaken or have appropriate experience in reviewing research, and who should be nominated on the basis of their "proven ability to direct a research program". As far as I can tell, the IPA has not made public the membership of its research committee.

The rules state explicitly that tax-deductible funds may not be used for "the organisation of conferences, congresses and symposia and the publication of information (other than the results of the ARI's own research work, undertaken through this program)."

All of this raises the question of whether donations to the IPA for which the donor has claimed a tax deduction are being used in compliance with the law.

The IPA has devoted considerable resources to staging public meetings to campaign against the Federal Government's carbon tax. In the year to June 30, 2010 it hosted 40 events around the country. This is clearly a political campaign; in no sense could these activities be called scientific research. So were the public meetings funded from tax deductible gifts? Did the Institute's research committee approve spending on these events? It may well be that they were funded from other sources, but we can't tell because of the IPA's lack of disclosure.

Similar questions can be asked about the series of seminars the IPA is conducting in northern Australia to build support for a special economic zone. It would be hard to defend these activities as "scientific research". The funds, it would seem, are being spent on "the organisation of conferences, congresses and symposia" on which tax-deductible gifts may not be spent.

Last year the IPA paid for two full-page advertisements in the Australian attacking the Government's climate change policy. The cost would have been in the order of $100,000. Who paid for them? Were they paid for with tax deductible gifts?

While we cannot be sure why the IPA refuses to come clean about its sources of funds, or what those sources are, if it were to be revealed that they included the mining industry or mining magnates then journalists would be obliged to report the fact each time they wrote a story about the IPA. The environment groups that the IPA has attacked for lack of accountability are transparent about their funding, yet the IPA knows that its credibility would be shot if it were seen to be the mouthpiece of big business with an interest in undermining climate science and climate policy.

The public may not have the means to shed light on the murky world of IPA finances, but the Tax Commissioner does. He should open up the Institute's books to ensure it is complying with the law and to force on the IPA the transparency it demands of others.

Clive Hamilton is Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra. He was formerly the executive director of the Australia Institute, which he founded in 1994. View his full profile <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/clive-hamilton-27800.html" target="_self" title="">here</a>.

===

The ripple effects of the U.S. campaign to 'defund the left' have been felt around the world. A U.S. mining company succeeded in having <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/USAID" title="USAID" class="mw-redirect">USAID</a> funding for an Indonesian community group pulled. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.ips.org">[2]</a> A Fulbright scholarship to the U.S., helped the Senior Fellow at the Australian <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_of_Public_Affairs" title="Institute of Public Affairs">Institute of Public Affairs</a> (IPA), <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gary_Johns" title="Gary Johns">Gary Johns</a> develop a good working relationship with the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/American_Enterprise_Institute" title="American Enterprise Institute">American Enterprise Institute</a> and escalate their emphasis on curtailing the activities of public interest groups.

The IPA themselves have targeted public interest groups in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Malaysia" title="Malaysia">Malaysia</a> and those working on issues in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Indonesia" title="Indonesia">Indonesia</a>. In mid-June 2004 the conservative Australian government released a consultancy report by the IPA's <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Gary_Johns" title="Gary Johns">Gary Johns</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/John_Roskam" title="John Roskam">John Roskam</a> proposing the first steps to reduce the access that non-government organisations have to government decision making. <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/aboutfacs/programs/community-managing_relations_with_ngo.htm">[3]</a>

In May 2002 Canadian PR consultant <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ross_S._Irvine" title="Ross S. Irvine">Ross S. Irvine</a>, who approvingly cites Johns views in his articles, was a keynote speaker at the annual conference of the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand. In his presentation Irvine identified "charitable organization legislation", now before parliament, as one of the key focal points to consider in <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/New_Zealand" title="New Zealand">New Zealand</a>.

In August 2004, the New Zealand Greens Green MP Sue Bradford warned that the proposed charities legislation "poses a real threat to one of the cornerstones of our democracy - the ability of people to come together and advocate for all manner of social, economic and environmental causes. Freedom of speech would be clouded because organisations that speak out on political issues would risk being deregistered by the Charities Commission." <a rel="nofollow" class="external autonumber" href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/PA0408/S00321.htm">[4]</a>

In early September 2004, the Director General of the New Zealand Health Ministry, Karen Poutasi, sent a draft instruction to health and disability NGOs revealing that it was proposed that "the Ministry does not fund lobbying activity and such activity will not be included in any contracts". The instruction, however, did not propose that organisations would be excluded from government funding if funds raised from other sources were used for lobbying. See <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Intimidating_democracy/New_Zealand_Health_Ministry_memo_to_NGOs" title="Intimidating democracy/New Zealand Health Ministry memo to NGOs">Intimidating democracy/New Zealand Health Ministry memo to NGOs</a> for the full text.

</div>

===