Critical projects need your support

Dear ,

As one of our members you’re helping to make Australia and Queensland a better place.

The AIP is the only independent centre-right policy think tank based in Queensland. (In fact we’re one of only a few think tanks in Queensland, period.)

Our state and country are in a difficult situation. Both governments and oppositions are following policies that will leave this country worse off.

For instance, federally Labor opposes personal tax cuts, even though, when they have fully flowed through in 6 years’ time, the tax burden will fall more heavily on top income earners than it does now.

It makes the government’s position better than the ALP’s but they both need organisations like ours in the public debate fighting for best, not second best, solutions.

According to our records you are currently an unfinancial member, and we’d like your support so we can keep fighting hard for good ideas in policy.

It’s probably our fault that you haven’t renewed because our membership system hasn’t been rebilling, so I’ve taken over doing memberships manually myself. Please renew by clicking on this link.

Over the last 12 months we’ve campaigned on free speech and religious freedom, electricity generation, the science crisis, and taxation. We’ve developed two policy booklets with great ideas for state and federal governments and hosted speakers including John Howard, Sir Leo Hielscher, Bettina Arndt, Tony Morris, and Mark Latham. We’ve also conducted regular polls and commented in the media.

Over the next twelve months we have some more major projects planned.

Electricity

A lack of affordable, reliable power is the biggest crisis facing this country, and all of the major parties, at a federal and state level, have policies that will make that crisis worse. It’s our job to make them think again. To do that we will be trying to break the debate out of the current paradigm.

We can do that by highlighting the practicalities involved in moving to a low carbon economy. The first problem is storage and backup. Another is that nuclear power is the only form of reliable power that can supply emissions-free electricity. A third is that all of these forms of power are more expensive than coal-fired generation once network and redundancy costs are taken into account.

Democracy

The Queensland state government lacks democratic legitimacy as it has used donations laws to disenfranchise innocent members of the real estate industry. Our own chair Bob Tucker, a former Liberal Party State President, can no longer donate to the state or local LNP, or even ask anyone else to do so, because he makes his living building the communities where we live and work.

At the same time the union movement pumps money into the ALP.

We will continue our campaign against this manifest unjustness by demonstrating just how much influence unions have over the state government and that this influence is improper.

Science

Professor Peter Ridd of James Cook University has uncovered poor quality assurance in the studies used to support interventions on the Great Barrier Reef. (Some of this bad science is even in the latest IPCC report). This is a subset of a much greater crisis in science, with 50% or more of studies being wrong – what is referred to as the reproducibility crisis. This is an issue which has to be solved, and we intend to be part of it, along with professor Ridd.

Taxation

We’ve recently linked-up with Defenders of Self-Funded Retirees, who are running an Australia-wide campaign against Labor’s promise to deny franking refunds to low earning retirees, and have provided some analysis work to help their campaign.

We’ll also be campaigning against the opposition’s negative gearing policies which are a tax grab dressed-up as a housing affordability policy.

At the same time we’re not happy with the government’s most recent tax package which over time leaves higher income earners with a bigger share of the tax bill than now, even as strong growth is reducing government outlays such as welfare.

Ten Big Ideas

This document has 10 ideas for making Queensland competitive again. More work needs to be done to flesh them out, and they cover most of the important areas: power generation, economy, health, education, housing, industrial relations, agriculture and governance. In each of ten areas we pick one thing that could be changed to make a major difference to the state.

We need you to stay on board

If you like the sound of this, please click on this link and renew your membership. If you’d like to give us some advice, please reply to this email address.

You might also like to book to come to the McIlwraith Lecture, Wednesday 18 July, 7:00 for 7:30 pm at Tattersall’s Club. Cost is $165 per head and you can book by clicking here.

Regards,

Graham Young
Executive Director