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Post-COVID normal
Dear ,
This email is to ask for your help in developing the role of our think tank.
For two years it's been hard to plan anything. Those of you who booked for the Cancel Culture function with Tony Abbott will know what I mean. We had three goes at it until we eventually got it done, 9 months after the first date was set, and then I wasn't able to be there.
Despite the various state premiers' addictions to states of emergency, and mutterings about a "Flurona" season (that's Flu+COVID in case you're wondering) I'm confident that the public will not wear another spate of restrictions.
Indeed, looking at the images, and audiovisuals from the invasion of Ukraine (the first war of the social media age), you realise how quickly COVID has faded in a country faced with a real existential crisis. Thank God, we don't have that sort of crisis here, but the contrast between what they face, and what we do, surely puts the risks of COVID into perspective, as well as making us appreciate our basic freedoms more keenly. I think that will put an end to lockdowns.
Which means we can move back into business, and that means many more events, and with the world moving so quickly, there is a definite need to help people to understand the changes, and navigate a path through them..
So I'm looking for help to make sure that our events meet the needs of our country and state, as well as our members, and that we hold events of the highest and best quality.
What I'm looking for at the moment is people to participate in a committee to help to organise events. The committee would generally meet by Zoom, but with some face to face meetings as well. Its job would be to advise on:- Issues and themes
- Formats
- Speakers
- Venues
With the world in turmoil this is the time when a think tank should be doing it's most valuable thinking, so I've scoped out a list of definite and possible events, The list, with comments, is below.
DEFINITE EVENTS
Lunch as well as evening function with Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
If you haven't heard of Benny, his Wikipedia entry, despite the inevitable snark, is a good place to start. The GWPF was set up by Maggie Thatcher's old Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson to critique global warming policy.
Benny is visiting from the UK, and will be in Brisbane on April 27. Lunch is booked for the Brisbane Club and the evening function will be in our offices. Each will have a different price point, as well as target market.
McIlwraith Lecture
This is our signature annual lecture and dinner. We're still working on the guest speaker, but it will happen, probably in the second half of the year. The purpose of the lecture is to honour someone who is either from Queensland, or operates here, and who has made an entrepreneurial contribution to some part of Queensland life. Some have been business people, like John Wagner, our first lecturer, but others have made contributions in other fields, like Sir Leo Hielscher, in public administration, or Professor Perry Bartlett, in medicine.
POSSIBLE EVENTS
Energy and defence
The invasion of Ukraine raises issues in energy policy and defence. So we're looking at two events to look at both of those areas. They are likely to be panel discussions.
Nuclear power
Developments in nuclear technology with fourth generation reactors, and the failure of intermittent renewables to provide reliable cost-effective power, make this a technology that is now acceptable to a small majority of the Australian community.
The concept here is to bring some of the proponents together in a conference in Brisbane.
Finding Porites
This is a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef narrated by Jennifer Marohasy and "starring" the Reef and Professor Peter Ridd. As we did with The Rise of Jordan Peterson and The Great Global Warming Swindle this would be shown in a cinema, with a Q&A afterwards. As an aside, if you know anyone in the 18-25 year age bracket who is interested in the GBR, they may like to apply for a Reef Rebels scholarship. It's a four day, all expenses paid, study trip to the GBR and surrounds. The program is run by the IPA.
Election coverage
In the past we've given previews and analysis of federal elections based on our own polling and insights, and those of others with different political views. This would most likely be held in our offices, and possibly augmented by Zoom.
SO WHAT AM I MISSING?
We have a space at 50 Logan Road that can take a lot more use. It fits 70 comfortably for lectures and book launches. We could also hold smaller seminars. Before COVID I was exploring the idea of small group tutorials on the Great Books of Western Culture. But what about small group tutorials in economics, or philosophy? History?
They're just my ideas. We're a free market think tank, and the essence of that is humility and the knowledge that one person is not as good as a multitude of people in competition and collaboration, and everything in between.
So please, if you have the time to help, drop me a line at graham.young@onlineopinion.com.au and let me know that you are interested.
Regards,
GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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