Record breaking book and a record breaking presenter

Dear ,

I thought that John Howard was a crowd-puller, but it looks like Tony Abbott may be even better, particularly if you all keep booking in numbers for next Tuesday’s launch of his history of Australia.

The book is also flying-off our shelves (virtually as we only have an online bookshop) faster than any other book we have stocked (again, sorry Mr Howard). It’s so popular I had to put in a second order because I’ve already sold more books than I thought we would sell in total.

Turns out it is the ideal gift for Christmas for friends and relatives young and old (particularly young it would seem, because we all suspect they were deprived of proper history classes).

The function is next Tuesday (in case you have forgotten) at 5:30 for 6:00 pm at Tattersall’s Club, 215 Queen Street, Brisbane. To book click here. (Don’t forget Tatt’s has a rigidly enforced dress code which you can read here).

Please RSVP by this Saturday at the latest.

You can also pre-order copies of the book when you buy your tickets, or to order bulk copies the cheapest option is our online book store which you can access here.

This would be a good function to bring a friend to as an excellent opportunity to introduce them to our institute and the work we do, as well as exposing them to one of Australia’s best prime ministers along with a history book that sets the record of the last 237 years straight.

Speaking of AIP functions, if you have some spare time, watch this episode from the Senate Information Integrity in Climate Change and Energy Select Committee where they interrogated Will Shackel of Nuclear Australia.

Will spoke to a lunch function we held in October 2023, just 25 months ago, and impressed everyone with his maturity – he was 16 at the time. He’s gotten even better since.

And if you go to the end of the video you will even find that function mentioned where the chair of the Committee, Greens' Peter Whish-Wilson, asks Will whether he felt conflicted when he spoke to us because we are a “coal-funded member of the Atlas Network”.

We are a proud member of the Atlas Network, which includes more than 500 centre-right organisations worldwide, so Whish-Wilson got that right. But in 2023 we had received zero money from the coal industry – although we did at the end of 2024 as a donation towards our campaign in the last Queensland state election against cost-of-living increases – so the Senator’s question lacks “information integrity”.

But that begs the question – why should Will Shackel be conflicted by addressing one of our meetings? We’ve had a clear pro-nuclear stance starting in 2019, and have hosted a number of pro-nuclear advocates in that time.

I will be sending a letter to the Senator to see what his problem is.

And in the meantime, I’m looking forward to another cracker of an AIP function with a star presenter – these are functions where you can meet past prime ministers, and future ones.

Kind regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE FOR PROGRESS