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A brief round-up of activitiesDear , This email is to up-date you on some of the things happening at the AIP. We’re grateful for your support but sometimes so much is going on that we don’t keep you up-to-date on what we’re doing. You are probably well-aware of the various functions we have been running from our advertising of them. Tonight we will be launching Fr Frank Brennan’s book Observations on the Pell Trial. Fr Brennan will be introduced by James Power. There is still time to book. We have 50 coming at this stage, so we can handle a few more. To book click here. Or just turn-up at the door at 50 Logan Road, Woolloongabba. This is the latest in a string of book launches that have all attracted big crowds and have included James Allan speaking to the launch of Wokeshevism and Gary Johns on The Burden of Culture. Our most successful wasn’t really our function – it was the symposium run by the Samuel Griffith Society on The Voice where we were over capacity. I’ve been concentrating on economic issues, energy and climate change. You can read our submission to the Queensland Parliament’s State Development and Regional Industries Committee on the Greens’ Climate Transition Bill by clicking here. The Greens want to become 100% CO2 free by 2035 and 75% by 2030. This can only be done by closing all fossil-fuel generation, which would destroy the grid. Further they want to ban exports of fossil fuels which would have no effect on global emissions and export jobs overseas. While I don’t expect the bill to go through, similar criticisms can be made of the government’s own policies, so I thought it was worth making a submission, with the intention of turning it into a policy paper. It also drew on the paper by Gene Tunny that was commissioned last year on the cost to the economy of closing the fossil fuel industries. You may also be interested in some of the articles that I’ve been writing. In some ways these are more effective than papers because they come out in bite-sized chunks and relate to current issues. The better policy articles have been in the Epoch Times. However, you might also find this one on changes to the Queensland Anti-discrimination Act from today's Spectator interesting: "Vale Rule of Law and Rule of Logic". If you’re not familiar with The Epoch Times I’d encourage you to have a look. Originally published in China by some Chinese dissidents it produces an Australian edition and has a solid centre-right news perspective, but without being a barracker for right of centre people and organisations. I think it has a good future and fills a hole left open by the leftward slide of most of the mainstream media. I’ve put links to the most relevant articles below, but the themes I’ve been pushing are that productivity is the key to what Australia needs and the government is either being counterproductive with the measures they are adopting at the behest of the unions, or just plain timid. It's a view that's been getting some solid support recently, including from the head of Treasury. Housing affordability and interest rates are another theme I have been pursuing. I’m of the view that rates have only just normalised and that while there is room for some increases from here, rates should not go back to where they were 18 months ago. Historically interest rates have tended to be somewhere between 4 and 6 per cent, except when they have been higher in response to an overheated economy. If they are not at that level there is a lot of mispricing of returns so that projects happen that don’t meet normal cost benefit criteria, and people are punished by the low interest rates for saving. Unfortunately that means that housing will stay unaffordable for much longer until inflation and increased supply bring prices back down to where repayments are affordable. We continue to push for home purchasers to be able to use their superannuation to fund a deposit. On another note, I’ve been invited to attend the inaugural meeting of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, which has been described as the common sense answer to the World Economic Forum. Initiated by Dr Jordan Peterson, its advisory board contains some familiar names, such as those of John Howard, John Anderson, Tony Abbott and Amanda Stoker. I’ve accepted, so will be in London at least for the 30th, 31st October and 1st November. I’ve sent this out to our members, and our broader mailing list. If you like what we are doing and are not a member, please think of joining. We rely on memberships, sponsorships and income from functions to fund our activities fighting for a future built on releasing the energy of millions of individuals through freedom of thought, speech and religion, ownership of private property, joining together in families, associations and groups in a matrix of trust where they are free to trade what they have for what they need. You can sign-up for a membership at https://aip.asn.au/join/, or donate at https://aip.asn.au/donate/.
Regards,  GRAHAM YOUNG 
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