Queensland election, and farewell to Gary Johns

Dear ,

Farewell

The germ of the Australian Institute for Progress was first planted when Gary Johns and I sat next to each other at a function immediately prior to the 2012 federal election and chatted about the need for a centre-right think tank in Brisbane.

After a couple of years of talking to other people it coalesced at a workshop - The Meaning of Progress - held at the Ship Inn in August 2014.

But now the time has come to say goodbye to Gary, who has been appointed the commissioner of the Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. You can read his views on the sector in his book The Charity Ball, which we launched in July 2015. And he has set-out some of his ideas for his role as commissioner today, in his last column (for awhile), for The Australian.

I intend to make sure that the information that charities supply to the commission is placed squarely into the public arena in a form that donors and taxpayers can use to judge the state of the market.

We'll miss his constant stream of publications, almost as much as his perceptive and strategic counsel, and even more his quiet sense of humour. I hope that when he is wearing his civvies he comes back to visit.

Queensland State Election

At the beginning of this year we published Ten Big Ideas to make Queensland a Champion. It was our state election manifesto, and one of the ideas - a power station for North Queensland - was taken up by a number of parties. Alas, none of the others were, and the Labor Party, which will now form the government, ruled even the power station out.

Which gives us the next three years.

We had a good presence during the election.

• At the beginning of the election we published an open letter to the political parties along with a number of prominent cosignatories. It helped position a number of our signatories as contacts for the media, and also put debt and financial management on the agenda as far as journalists were concerned.
• Our research paper "Implications of a 50% renewable energy policy on Queensland’s energy sector" was front page of the Courier Mail under the title "Nervous Energy" on the Monday of the last week of the election (download text and a facsimile by of front page by clicking here, and inside page by clicking here.
• We also produced a research paper "Donations to Queensland Political Parties 2016 until election 2017 and ban on developer contributions". This received coverage in yesterday's Sunday Mail, as well as this morning when I was on Steve Austin's ABC Mornings program and will form the basis of our ongoing campaign for freedom of speech and the right of Australians from any industry to support the political parties of their choice. I kicked this campaign off with an op-ed in the Courier Mail in October, just before the election was called.
• We conducted two qualitative polls during the election. The first at the beginning, and the second as an exit poll. The results were broadly right. Labor has just fallen over the line. The LNP fell well-short, and One Nation, KAP, and other independents did well, but not well-enough to hold the balance of power. Our polling is important because it positions us as an accurate source of research. If the polling we do about elections is accurate, then it gives us credibility for other work that we do.
• I was in demand as an election expert, with an appearance on the 7:30 report, and spots on Radio National and local radio. The Australian reported on our polling and analysis, as did the Courier Mail, and I had an opinion piece in each (download Oz online article here and facsimile of Courier article here) as well as an op-ed in the Australian Financial Review.

The Institute had a good election, despite the outcome, and we are demonstrating what we can do as we mature. We achieved a lot more than we have previously because we have expanded our funding base and were able to pay for much of the research that we did in the election.

If you want to help with our further growth, think about donating some money to us, or commissioning us to do some research. You can discuss research projects with me by emailing me graham.young@aip.asn.au. And you can donate by going to https://aip.asn.au/donate/.

Conclusion

The election has shown that we can be effective in promoting our ideas. The election result will present challenges, but those are the opportunities that think tanks should thrive on. The enemies of the free society are already gloating over what they can do with a majority Labor government, and it is our job, in the areas we can, to make that as hard for them as possible. At the same time we also need to keep an eye on federal politics.

And if you want to get more involved in the day-by-day cut and thrust, don't forget to follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR