Free markets are going mainstream

August 9, 2012

From James Paterson

This week the IPA and its members had a big win. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott promised to repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act (used against Andrew Bolt) and to oppose any new regulation of the media. The video of his address to the IPA in Sydney is now available online. Chris Berg has a round up of responses to the speech.

(No prizes for guessing how SBS felt about the speech, given their choice of photo.)

Last week Hey readers were fascinated to read why Rowan Atkinson’s brother thought the Olympic opening ceremony was left wing. Turns out Rowan himself is a staunch defender of freedom of speech. Click here and here to see why.

And while we are still on the Olympic theme, this is a great list: the 12 weirdest Olympic events in history. But they missed the weirdest event of all – poetry! Meanwhile, an Australian newspaper has earned the ire of the Hermit Kingdom for this cheeky medal tally.

Obviously police in Geelong, Victoria have locked up all the serious criminals. That’s the only way to explain their ‘Operation Double Jeopardy’, targeting…swearing parents. What’s next, sentencing parents to community service for letting their kids draw with chalk?

You know free markets are going mainstream (or America’s debt problem is getting really serious) when even Barack Obama’s former budget director says privatising the US postal service is a good idea. And poor old California – Facebook’s falling stock price just blew a hole in their already debt-ridden budget.

Of course, things are much worse in Europe than America. Reason magazine lists the five major culprits.

The next edition of the IPA Review is out next week. In the meantime, enjoy these two great articles from the last edition – Richard Allsop on The Slap and John Shipp’s review of On China by Henry Kissinger.

And this is a wonderful long piece from Jonah Goldberg in the Claremont Review of Books on why American conservatives got off track during the Cold War.

Here’s what else the IPA said this week: