It’s show time – by two

Dear ,

We have two big events coming up this week. We’re in court tomorrow to defend the right of all Queenslanders to financially contribute to the causes they support; and we host Larry Reed from the Foundation for Economic Education on Sunday.

And the best thing is if you come to our talk on Sunday you will help to financially support our court appearance on Thursday.

First to Larry. Larry will be talking in the institute auditorium on the topic “Was Jesus a Socialist?” MC for the function will be Steve Austin from ABC Brisbane.

Larry is a gifted writer and speaker, and has written the book on this subject. Steve is a committed Christian (rare, but not unknown in the ABC) and a gifted interviewer.  The meeting of the two should lead to a nuanced and spirited presentation and discussion as to just how Christian belief and practice should interact with social governance.

Time is 3:00 for 3:30 pm at 50 Logan Road, Woolloongabba. To book, click here.

Now, to court. Everything is locked and loaded and we will be appearing before Justice Susan Brown in Court 13 sometime after 10:00 am. You can’t overestimate the importance of this action.

If the ECQ’s interpretation of the law is upheld, then no one who makes a living developing the built environment in which we live, work and play, will be able to financially support any community organisation that might advocate for a policy position.

That’s not just think tanks like ours that will be robbed of financial support, but conservation and welfare groups and even churches.

The government is determined to win, and we have received a notice that the state attorney-general will intervene.

To illustrate how tricky this area can be I will share a table out of a media release that we put out today. On our interpretation of the ECQ’s ruling all of these community groups would be classified as “third parties” and in their view unable to take donations from property developers.

We’ve also applied the test to the organisations that are donating to determine whether they are property developers. There is a broad range of organisations there because development doesn’t have to be your main business, just a regular part of it.

Please note this is not a comprehensive list, and we have done a desk audit only.



I’ll let you know as soon as I can what happens – and we won’t necessarily get a result tomorrow, particularly with the intervention of third parties. Documents etc. should be progressively posted to this page.

In the meantime, if you haven’t renewed your membership and were looking for a good time to do so, now could be it. We need all the support we can get. (To renew your membership, please click on this link). Donations are also welcome, but please go here to do that.

Regards,

Graham Young
Executive Director