Institute of Public Affairs


The Institute of Public Affairs is a conservative non-profit free market public policy think tank, which is based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It advocates free-market economic policies, such as privatisation, deregulation of state-owned enterprises, trade liberalisation, deregulation of workplaces, abolition of the minimum wage, criticism of socialism, and repeal of Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975. It also rejects large parts of climate science.
The IPA was founded during World War II by businessmen in response to the growing power of the Labor Party and international socialism, and has typically aligned with, and supported, the Liberal Party in politics. It has in the past funded and created advertising campaigns for anti-Labor candidates, and has had an impact on Liberal Party policies, according to former prime minister John Howard.

History

Historian Michael Bertram, writing in 1989, identified three distinct periods for the Institute of Public Affairs:
  1. the war years and "immediate post-war years" where Australia's economic future was in question, ending with the election of Robert Menzies in 1949;
  2. the "Keynesian consensus" of the 1950s and 1960s and
  3. the "sea-shift to the right" of the 1970s and 1980s.

    War and immediate post-war years (1943–1949)

The Institute of Public Affairs was founded in 1943 as the Institute of Public Affairs Victoria, with Charles Kemp as its inaugural director and George Coles as its inaugural chair. The founders were prominent businessmen, and current executive director John Roskam says of the occasion: "Big business created the IPA". The idea to form the Institute of Public Affairs was first floated in the Victorian Chamber of Manufactures.
The IPA's formation was prompted by the collapse of Australia's main right-wing party, the United Australia Party. The IPA's initial purpose was to influence Australia's post-war reconstruction, with business interests concerned that popular sentiment supported a Labor-led, collectivist post-war construction, a "prevailing clamour for a new kind of society".
Throughout 1943, branches were set up in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, although the state branches remained administratively and ideologically distinct. There seems to have been a pre-existing body called the Institute of Public Affairs in Western Australia, which operated between 1941 and 1942. The IPA NSW engaged in "party political activism", while at the IPA Victoria's first annual meeting in 1944 chair GJ Coles said that they "did not wish to be directly involved in politics".
In March 1943, the head of the Commonwealth Security Service, Brigadier William Simpson requested a report into whether the newly formed IPA had sympathies with "fascism", "counter-revolution" or the powers with which Australia was at war, but his deputy director said that the IPA's committee and sponsors were "beyond reproach".
The CSS was restructured in late 1943 and it again investigated the IPA's state branches. The IPA Queensland's radio play The Harris Family was required to be submitted to and approved by the Chief-Inspector. The second review was completed in 1944. The CSS reported that nothing could be found to suggest that the IPA was subversive, and the war record of its supporters was "very fine", although two of the IPA NSW's council members were members of the Japan-Australia Society and one was associated with the Old Guard. The National Archives of Australia preserve the CSS' reports into each branch, as well as material collected in the course of their investigation.
In October 1944, the IPA printed 50,000 copies of Looking Forward, an 80-page booklet which set out the possibilities of post-war reconstruction. Robert Menzies described Looking Forward as "the finest statement of basic political and academic problems made in Australia for many years".
The IPA had no formal association with the formation of the Liberal Party of Australia by Menzies in 1945. Political scientist Marian Simms says that the IPA's role was to act as "an interim finance collector for non-Labor political interests", initiate "the unification of the non-Labor organizations in Victoria... and then among them" and provide "much of the content of the federal platform of the LPA and propaganda for political campaigns". Looking Forward was influential in the Liberal Party's inaugural platform.
Norman Abjorensen credits the IPA in this period with the collapse in ALP support, saying that the IPA was "the architect of a stream of propaganda that sought, successfully, to discredit Australia's very moderate Labor Party as a socialist tiger waiting to pounce once the war had ended."
G. J. Coles Chairman of Directors, G. J. Coles & Co.
H. G. DarlingChairman of Directors, BHP
Captain C. A. M. DerhamPresident, Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers.
G. H. GrimwadeDirector, Drug Houses of Australia.
H. R. HarperGeneral Manager, the Victoria Insurance Co.
W. A. InceLawyer and Company Director.
F. E. LampePresident, Australian Council of Retailers.
Sir Walter Massy-GreeneCompany Director, with a distinguished past career in Federal politics.
Sir Keith MurdochChairman of Directors, Herald & Weekly Times.
L. J. McConnanChief Manager, the National Bank of Australasia
Cecil N. McKayManaging Director, H. V. McKay-Massey-Harris.
W. E. McPhersonChairman of Directors, McPherson's.
W. I. PotterFounder, Ian Potter & Co..
A. G. WarnerManaging Director, Electronic Industries.

Keynesian consensus (1949–1972)

During the 1950s and 1960s, the IPA "came to wholeheartedly support" Keynesian economics, with director C. D. Kemp writing "we are all socialists now". Over this period, the Institute argued for Australia's migration rate to be halved, which drew criticism from the Australian Industries Development Association and The Age. The institute also identified inflation as a major issue, and opposed the abolition of the means test, called for lower taxes, criticised the introduction of the Trade Practices Act, advocated for fewer restraints on foreign investment and celebrated Britain joining the European Economic Community.
In 1962, the IPA dropped "Victoria" from its name, an act that caused relations between it and the IPA NSW to "deteriorate further".

"Sea-shift to the right" (1972–1995)

In the 1970s, the IPA and IPA NSW cooperated to establish Enterprise Australia. This organisation had as "an immediate target... the removal of the present Labor government in Canberra", while the IPA ostensibly stayed at arm's length in an attempt to be perceived as above party politics.
From its founding to the late 1970s, the IPA had been associated with anti-socialist Keynesian economics and protectionist industry. The appointment of Rod Kemp as executive director in 1982, along with other administrative changes that had occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, marked a shift to neo-liberal ideology that continues to this day.
In June 1987 the IPA was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee.
In 1989, the IPA NSW – which had always been administratively and ideologically distinct – changed name to the Sydney Institute, and transitioned from neo-liberal think tank to discussion forum. The IPA NSW had a budget of $120,000 in 1985, compared to the IPA Victoria's $300,000.
Rod Kemp left his position as executive director in 1989 as he had been elected to Parliament.
In 1991, the IPA amalgamated with the Perth-based Australian Institute of Public Policy and John Hyde moved from executive director of the Australian Institute of Public Policy to executive director of the IPA. The AIPP had been founded by Hyde in 1983 as a neo-liberal think tank, and the merger brought its annual revenue of about $300,000 or $400,000 to the IPA. Hyde described the merger as "joining forces with old friends".
The IPA cooperated with the Tasman Institute on Project Victoria, which provided a blueprint for the privatisation and deregulation of the Victorian economy when Jeff Kennett became premier in 1992. The research was done with the assistance of Westpac staff seconded to work on the project.

Nahan and Roskam eras (1995–present)

John Roskam replaced Mike Nahan as executive director in 2005, although he had worked at the IPA for a number of years before that.
Between 2009 and 2013, the IPA's annual revenue doubled to $3.2 million a year, an increase attributed by Roskam to the IPA's campaign against parts of the Racial Discrimination Act and the Gillard government's media regulation proposals.
In 2008, former executive director of the IPA Rod Kemp was appointed chair of the IPA.
In 2013 the IPA celebrated its 70th anniversary, MCed by political commentator Andrew Bolt. Notable in attendance at the celebrations were:
In August 2018, Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd resigned during an investigation into correspondence he had with his former colleagues at the Institute of Public Affairs. On the day he retired, the investigation concluded that he had breached the Australian Public Service code of conduct by corresponding with the Institute of Public Affairs, but the breach did not warrant sanction. Lloyd subsequently returned to work at the IPA.
In 2018, the IPA held two dinners to celebrate its 75th anniversary. The first was sponsored by Visy and took place on 21 August, the night of the first 2018 Liberal Party of Australia leadership spill. Former prime minister John Howard was interviewed at the dinner by Janet Albrechtsen about the spill, but did not explicitly support either candidate. Gina Rinehart and Rupert Murdoch praised US President Donald Trump at the dinner.
The second dinner was hosted by Crown Melbourne in November, and was hosted by Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt and Brendan O'Neill. Guests included chair of Liberal Party fundraiser the Cormack Foundation Charles Goode; former Cormack board members Hugh Morgan and John Calvert-Jones; Liberal minister Alan Tudge; and Liberal strategist Brian Loughnane.
In 2020, the IPA released a video featuring then-Director of Policy Gideon Rozner, calling for an end to COVID-19 lockdown measures. The video was released on 4 April, less than a week after Australia's COVID-19 National Cabinet had agreed to the lockdowns. This effectively made the IPA the first organisation in Australia to call for an end to lockdowns, a highly controversial stance at the time.
In 2021, in reaction to Victorian Labor government moves to ban the public display of the Nazi swastika and other hate symbols, Roskam decried the move as "the most vicious attack on free speech ever contemplated anywhere in Australia".
In 2023, the IPA collaborated with free market think tanks Centre for Independent Studies, LibertyWorks, conservative lobby group Advance, and several fossil fuel companies to coordinate the No campaign during the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum.