A billion dollar school
September 2, 2010
Seriously, how could a school cost $578 million? Only in California. It was meant to cost $400m. At least they didn’t do a BER. Here’s the story of the library in Cooma in NSW costing 3 times the original estimate of $285,000. Imagine. If we sent NSW bureaucrats to America, California could have had its first billion dollar school.
We’re now going to have a parliamentary enquiry into a carbon tax. It could investigate the collapse of the carbon price in Chicago.
The plummeting price of carbon demonstrates US carbon traders think the chances of an American ‘cap and trade’ scheme anytime soon are practically zero.
Here electricity prices are going up and up and up thanks to ‘renewable energy targets’. Here’s what the boss of one of the country’s biggest energy companies said about them yesterday. The IPA’s Alan Moran has written about the real cost of renewable energy here and here.
(The average household uses about 9 MWh (Megawatt Hours) of electricity a year. The cost of generating 1 MWh conventionally is under $40. The cost from a wind farm is $125 per MWh and from solar is over $400 per MWh)
Here’s a nice analysis in The Australian on Monday from Michael Stutchbury of the policy craziness engulfing Canberra. And from yesterday’s Australian Literary Review Geoffrey Blainey reviews a new biography of the historian Keith Hancock. Hancock’s 1930 book Australia is of course one of the IPA’s 100 Great Books of Liberty.
With September upon us, Reason TV has announced August’s Nanny of the Month.
If you’re reading this you’re one of the 54% of Australians who have heard of us. Yep – we did a poll to find out. Here’s Andrew Norton’s discussion of the results.
In Friday’s Australian, Sinclair Davidson argued for an independent budget office. In The Drum on Tuesday, Chris Berg said that reforming the states was not a bad idea, and on Wednesday, Tim Wilson said that trying to fight rising living costs was making things worse. In Wednesday’s AFR, Alan Moran warned of an ALP-Green government.
PS: The IPA’s Tim Wilson will be speaking at Creative Innovation 2010, a conference on leadership and creativity. Speakers include Edward de Bono, Edward Luttwak and Paul McNamee. You can get a 10% discount here - log in with the username ci2010 and the password imagine.
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… actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them
August 26, 2010
There’ve been lots of explanations for the election result on Saturday. Here’s another one:
The IPA’s Julie Novak prepared it. Sure – there’s lots of reasons people vote the way they do – but maybe – just maybe – if you work for the government you’re more likely to vote Labor.
Today everyone’s talking about Tony Abbott’s policy costings. Just shows we need an independent Parliamentary Budget Office! I said it on Monday’s 7:30 Report, and here’s the IPA’s Tim Wilson on Lateline last night. Why shouldn’t we trust Treasury? All their mistakes! Read what the IPA thinks of Treasury’s failures here and here and here.
If you missed the ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday it’s here. It’s a free market perspective on the GFC! (How did it get to air??) Look out for Peter Schiff, the guy who predicted the GFC and who we told you about a few weeks ago.
If you’ve got an iPhone, you’re bored with Angry Birds, and you want to know more about climate change, have a look at the ‘Our Climate‘ app.
Here’s something moderately scary from America. In Philadelphia you need a business licence to blog. And here’s something really scary from America – via the National Review Online. This is from the editorial in Saturday’s New York Times – ‘But many of Mr DeLay’s actions remain legal only because lawmakers have chosen not to criminalize them.‘ Think about it for a moment and what it means. Here’s the original editorial.
If you’re in the mood for some thoughtful reading consider Ken Minogue’s gracious 3500 word analysis of democracy and modern morality from The New Criterion. Everybody’s talking about it.
On Friday in The AFR, I said that we should be afraid of politicians’ visions. In Saturday’s Herald Sun, Alan Moran argued that housing was forgotten in the election. Julie Novak said that the mining sector was left in the lurch in The Courier Mail on Monday. And Chris Berg in The Drum has been writing about Julia Gillard and the evils of compulsory voting.
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Of course you’d rather be poor
August 19, 2010
You would have seen the media coverage about an open letter from 51 ‘economists’ claiming Labor’s stimulus saved Australia from recession.
Has anyone actually looked at the record of these people? The instigator of the letter was Professor Raja Junankar, author of ‘Marx’s economics‘.
Some of the other ‘research’ these ‘economists’ are responsible for includes:
- ‘Is this racism? Representations of South Africa in the Sydney Morning Herald since the inauguration of Thabo Mbeki as president’
- ‘Rethinking left union strategy: Left productivism and the labour process in Australia since the end of cold-war.’
And my favourite:
- ‘Direct and derived policies: illicit drug use and greenhouse gas emissions in Australia’
Yep – I’m glad these people work at taxpayer-funded universities rather than in the real world.
Maybe these economists would welcome the news that Australia is now up there with Venezuela when it comes to sovereign risk and tax rate uncertainty for mining projects. All thanks to Kevin Rudd’s resources tax. Here’s the report released last week by Canada’s Fraser Institute (go to page 18).
And would you be happier if you were poorer? The authors of an influential new book The Spirit Level think so. It’s no surprise the British Labour Party (and some misguided Tories) love it. In the latest IPA Review Julie Novak explains why they’re wrong. And Peter Saunders from the CIS has this on the dodgy statistics behind the book. Here’s a summary of the debate from The Guardian a few days ago.
If you missed the IPA’s Melbourne launch of 100 Great Books of Liberty last Wednesday, you can hear the highlights of the panel discussion with Michael Kroger, Sally Warhaft, and Peter van Onselen from Monday’s Counterpoint on Radio National. Buy the book here.
In The Sunday Age, Chris Berg argued that the Charter of Budget Honesty is useless, in The Drum on Tuesday he said government was stopping broadband. In The Washington Times yesterday, Tim Wilson said that green protectionism will hurt consumers. And on Tuesday, Tim was on SBS’ Insight saying Northern Australia should be a free trade zone.
The August IPA Review is out now. In it Tony Barry discusses the fraud of ‘hope politics‘, Sinclair Davidson explains the financial shambles of out last PM, and Brad Laver reviews Nothing to Envy – the story of North Korea’s totalitarian tragedy.
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I play gym
August 12, 2010
One big policy has escaped scrutiny this federal election. It’s the Greens’ policy on ‘non-competitive‘ sport – apparently they want us to play more of it. Imagine explaining you play ‘non-competitive’ sports to a friend:
| Friend: | What sports do you play? |
| You: | I play gym and yoga. |
| Friend: | They’re not really sports though. |
| You: | Yes they are – they’re non-competitive sports. |
| Friend: | A non-competitive sport is not a sport – dude. It’s just a thing you do. |
| You: | Nuh-uh. I vote Green. |
Yep. It’s bizarre. Here’s something just as bizarre – but no laughing matter. Boroondara Council in Melbourne will impose a fine of up to $1000 on residents who don’t display their house numbers. According to the mayor ‘it’s a fundamental right to be able to identify your own property’. Huh? (So why I can’t find it listed anywhere in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights?)
If you want some comic relief from local councils gouging more money out of taxpayers, read this from the Atlantic Wire a fortnight ago on whether Jedi Knights are Libertarian or Socialist. You’ll see a mention of this famous press release issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2001.
Here’s some serious stuff. On Monday Robert Gottliebsen in the Business Spectator gave a very good summary of why the government’s school building program ran billions of dollars over budget. And here’s the IPA report he referred to.
And if Paul Krugman really annoys you – read this demolition of him in the American Thinker from last week.
In The Drum yesterday, Richard Allsop said a ‘Big Australia’ is nothing to fear. In The Sunday Age, Chris Berg questioned if the Greens will ever grow up, on The Drum on Tuesday he looked at Labor’s internal war and on Friday suggested a speech for Tony Abbott. In the Bangkok Post on Monday and The Washington Times on Saturday Tim Wilson discussed Green protectionism. In the Herald Sun on Saturday and The Drum on Monday, Alan Moran wondered where all the climate change policies have gone. And in the AFR on Friday I said there actually are big policy differences this election.
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