Mont Pelerin Society MPS – Social Darwinism – Free Market Economics – Atlas Koch Network

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) another fulcrum of influence for radical right libertarians, climate science deniers and fossil fuels, the less than 1% and Austrian-Chicago School of social-Darwinist economics, with its influence continuing via Atlas or Koch Network and ultra conservatives.

MPS has been behind and influenced a network of think tanks globally via Atlas or Koch to promote climate science denial, fossil fuels, deregulation or lower standards etc. then leveraging right wing media, influencers, advisors and politicians to adopt the same policies, see ‘bill mill’ ALEC.

Members allegedly have included Charles Koch, and supported by notables including Murdochs, Evangelical Christian and related donors, with the GOP Republicans adopting MPS and John Birch Society ideas, themes and actions for Project 2025, being developed with Heritage Foundation support.

Like members of IEA Institute of Economic Affairs and MPS, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan, the economic muse of Charles Koch, Atlas and Koch Network.

Objective, beyond low tax, small government and light regulation appears to be implementing a permanent social-Darwinist ideology used to justify corrupt nativist Christian authoritarianism in the Anglosphere, west, Russia and developing world, for the less than 1%?

‘DeSmog:

The Mont Pelerin Society MPS

Background

The Mont Pelerin Society (MPS) was created in 1947 by the free market economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek and advocates “classical liberalism,” an ideology classified by small government and minimal regulation of business. It was named after the location of the group’s first meeting in Switzerland, and the group’s subsequent annual meetings have spanned the globe including Galapagos Islands, Prague (former Czech president Vaclav Klaus is a member), New York, Morocco, Tokyo, Sydney, Buenos Aires, and Stockholm. American economist Milton Friedman was also one of the founding members of the Society….

….. Antony Fisher, a former Mont Pelerin Society Member, established both the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Europe, and the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. IEA’s other co-founder, Arthur Seldon, was formerly vice president of the MPS.

The Atlas Society, not to be confused with the Atlas Network, also includes individuals with affiliations to MPS. According to DeSmog research, Mont Pelerin members have ties to a wide range of conservative think tanks, many which have consistently denied the human influence on climate change. Some of the top groups tied to MPS through affiliations of its members include the Cato Institute, The Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Reason Foundation, the Foundation for Economic Education, the American Enterprise Institute, the Centre for the New Europe, George Mason University, Fraser Institute, Mercatus Center (George Mason University), and the Heartland Institute.

Membership lists obtained by DeSmog dating to 2010 and, more recently, 2013 show that organizations represented by the MPS have deep ties to the Koch network. Charles Koch himself is a long-standing member of the Society. DeSmog dug into individual member affiliations, and found that Koch foundations have poured more than $100 million into at least 54 groups connected to individual MPS members.

Stance on Climate Change

Some sources have connected the proliferation of climate change denial organizations and think tanks with neoliberalism. A 2013 issue of the not-for-profit magazine Overland put it as follows:

“Neoliberalism is a coherent political movement embodied in the institutional history of the global network of think tanks: the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Institute of Public Affairs (the key Australian node of the network) and their dedicated spin-off counter-science think tanks. All can be traced back to the Mont Pelerin Society, the central think tank of the neoliberal counter-revolution, founded in 1947 by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.”

Overland also equates the tactics of climate science denialism with that of the tobacco industry.

“Each component of the neoliberal response is firmly grounded in neoliberal economic doctrine and has its own special function. Similar to the strategies of tobacco companies, science denialism is intended to quash immediate impulses to respond to the crisis, thus buying time for commercial interests to find a way to profit. The think tanks behind the denial of climate change don’t seriously believe they will, in the long run, win the war of ideas within academic science. But bashing pointy-headed elites lends them a certain populist cachet, while protecting the commercial interests of the oil companies, coal miners and gas drillers.

The project to institute markets in emission permits is a neoliberal mid-range strategy, better attuned to appeal to centrist governments, NGOs and the educated segments of the populace, as well as to the financial sector. […]”

Writing at DeSmog, Graham Readfearn has noted that the Mont Pelerin Society has long been home to some of the most ardent supporters of climate change denial……

Continues here.’

For more related blogs and articles on Australian Politics, Climate Change, Conservative, Economics, Environment, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Libertarian Economics, Political Strategy and Radical Right Libertarians click through:

Adam Smith – Classical Liberal Economics or Conservative Calvinist Christianity or White Christian Nationalism?

Posted on June 21, 2021

We observe many governments, especially Anglosphere and conservative, following the ideology of Adam Smith, promoted through Koch linked think tanks, assiduously. The outcomes include less Keynesian influence on government policy and more Smith, or Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan.

The latter cite ‘freedom and liberty’ for society, and economic policies based round ‘public choice theory’, monetarism and small government. Related there is also much emphasis or attention paid to elections, taxes, government budgets and many sociocultural issues including impairment of workers and unions rights, interfering on university campuses, demanding immigration restrictions, ‘freedom of speech’ and using Christianity as a divisive issue to create an ageing conservative voter coalition, especially in the USA.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

Posted on October 28, 2022

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

Ghosts of Galton and Eugenics Return – Society, Population and Environment in the 21st Century

Posted on November 25, 2021

We have already looked at some other key players of the past related to eugenics, population via Malthus and liberal economics of Adam Smith, now we look at Galton, if not in detail, a broad sketch of his life and later impact on society, especially in the Anglosphere.

This has been exemplified by how eugenics theory never went away, even after the Nazis post WWII, but reemerged via the US using an environmental and climate prism, with a focus upon Malthusian population obsessions; supported by ZPG, UNPD data, Anglosphere media and think tanks to avoid regulation and business constraints, while encouraging xenophobia.

CPAC Conservative Political Action Conference and the John Birch Society

Posted on March 14, 2024

CPAC US has been in the news for falling audiences and fallings out between different groups and players, while CPAC Hungary will be held 25-26th April in Budapest.

Recently both The Atlantic and SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center have highlighted the links between CPAC and the anti-communist John Birch Society, founded by Robert Welch, with assistance from others including Fred Koch.

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Posted on March 27, 2023

We have heard much of supposed ‘libertarian’ think tanks or PR outfits in the Anglosphere influencing policy, especially of the right, via media and lobbying, euphemistically known as ‘Koch Network’ or the ‘Kochtopus’ with a fondness for fossil fuels and climate science denial.

New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer investigated several years ago for her book ‘Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right’ (2017) which included insight into oligarch donors Mellon-Scaife, Olin, Bradley, DeVos and Coors.

Further, historian Nancy MacLean in researching her book ‘Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’ (2017) she stumbled across the economic muse of Kochs, ‘segregation economist’ James Buchanan.

Australia – Indigenous Voice Referendum – Atlas – Koch Network – CIS – IPA – Murdoch

Australia has had its Brexit or Trump moment on the indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum, being usurped by a proxy election campaign, with outcomes being divided society, communities and no real solutions.

Further, the ‘architecture of influence’ and modus operandi are the same as Brexit and Trump including Koch Network think tanks at Tufton St. London and Washington, Tanton Network’s NGOs promoting former ZPG Zero Population Growth nativist tropes versus the ‘other’, whether refugee, immigrant, ethnic minority including native and population growth, with Murdoch right wing led media and related social media campaigns, targeting older voters. 

Locally deep seated white nativism promoted by Tanton Network (Sustainable Population Australia), Atlas – Koch Network linked IPA Institute of Public Affairs, CIS Centre for Independent Studies, Murdoch led right wing media cartel and ageing voters in suburbs, but especially regions (subjected to a US GOP mid western strategy); corrupt white nativist and narcissistic authoritarianism to protect <1%, fossil fuels and mining.

‘Silencing the Voice: the fossil-fuelled Atlas Network’s Campaign against Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australia 

Jeremy Walker of UTS

Abstract: ‘Australians will soon vote in a referendum to recognise Indigenous Australia in its 1901 Constitution and establish a First Nations Voice to Parliament. 

A year ago, polling suggested the referendum proposal of the 2017 National Constitutional Convention and its Uluru Statement from the Heart enjoyed 60% support. Since lead anti-Voice campaign organisation Advance Australia began its media offensive, the Yes vote has declined to 40%. 

This article argues the No campaign is being conducted on behalf of fossil-fuel corporations and their allies, whose efforts to mislead the public on life-and-death matters reach back over half a century. Coordinated across the Australian branches of the little-known Atlas Network, a global infrastructure of 500+ ‘think-tanks’ including the Centre for Independent Studies, the Institute of Public Affairs and LibertyWorks, I demonstrate that the No campaign shares the aims and methods of the longstanding Atlas disinformation campaign against climate policy. 

Opposition to long-overdue constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians can be traced to fears the Voice might strengthen the capacity of Indigenous communities and Australia’s parliamentary democracy to rein in the polluting industries driving us toward climate and ecological collapse.’

DeSmog: ‘A Secretive Network Is Fighting Indigenous Rights in Australia and Canada, Expert Says

It’s all part of a global playbook from the U.S.-based Atlas Network to protect the profits of fossil fuel and mining companies, argues a Sydney researcher…

…The campaign’s main spokespeople are Indigenous – Warren Mundine and Australian Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price – and they have been interviewed frequently in the country’s mainstream media. Yet few Australians are aware of Mundine and Price’s connections to the wider Atlas Network, Walker argues.  Both “No” campaigners are long-time contributors to the Centre for Independent Studies, Walker’s paper explains, a conservative think tank founded in 1976 with grants from resource extraction companies such as Shell, Rio Tinto and Western Mining Corporation.

The Center for Independent Studies is in turn a member of the Atlas Network, a Virginia-based organization whose members include hundreds of conservative think tanks and organizations across the world, many of whom are active spreaders of doubt about the severity of climate change.

One of the Center for Independent Studies’ first board members, Maurice Newman, was revealed as an early backer of the organization Advance in 2018, which is now leading efforts against the Indigenous referendum. And Advance’s lead “No” campaigner Mundine is chairman of LibertyWorks, a conservative group also associated with the Atlas Network.

Despite these connections, Advance strongly disputes any association with Atlas.’ 

DeSmog: ‘Atlas Network (Atlas Economic Research Foundation)

Many of the member think tanks of the Atlas Network have supported climate science denial and have campaigned against legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions..

The Atlas Economic Research Foundation (AERF) was founded by Antony Fisher in 1981 with the goal of spreading “innovative, market-based perspectives to issues of public policy” globally…

…The stated vision of the Atlas Network is to “win the long-term policy battles that will shape history, we need freedom champions to create credible institutes – well-managed and independent of vested interests – that use sound business practices to advance sound public policy ideas.”

SourceWatch describes the Atlas Economic Research Foundation as “The Johnny Appleseed of anti regulation groups […] on a mission to populate the world with new ‘free market’ voices.” The mission of Atlas, according to John Blundell (president from 1987 to 1990), “is to litter the world with free-market think-tanks.”’

ABC RN: ‘The ‘mother of all think tanks’ could be behind disinformation about the Voice referendum. A non-governmental organisation known as the Atlas Network could be behind some of the biggest disinformation campaigns on climate change and the tobacco industry.

And one research paper suggests that the network could also have inspired some of the tactics being used by the Voice No campaigns in the lead up to next weekend’s referendum.’

The AIM Australian Independent Media Network: ‘Reforming money in politics: crushing Dark Money without eliminating quality independents

ByLine Times: ‘Brexit and Climate Science Denial: The Tufton Street Network…

….Matthew Elliott was chief executive of Vote Leave at the time. He is also the founder of the Taxpayers’ Alliance and is on the advisory board of The European Foundation, a high-profile Eurosceptic think tank chaired by Conservative MP Bill Cash, both of which are based in 55 Tufton Street.

Elliott is a key connection between the Tufton Street network and infamous US funders of climate science denial, Charles and David Koch – owners of Koch Industries, the US’s largest private fossil fuel company.

Elliott’s wife Sarah used to work for Koch lobbying vehicle the Americans for Prosperity and Americans for Tax Reform, which Matthew Elliott has cited as a political inspiration.

The Kochs fund the Atlas Network, a Washington DC-based non-profit organisation that works to support more than 450 organisations in 90 countries promoting what it describes as individual liberty and free-market ideals.

Through these ties, Trump and his allies have been able to push their desire to get the UK to lower its food and environmental standards in pursuit of a favourable post-Brexit trade deal. A trade deal the next prime minister of the UK Government may well be desperate to do, seemingly no matter the cost.

Atlas: ‘40 Years After Atlas Network’s Original Workshop

Forty years ago this week, Atlas Network held its first event in Vancouver, British Columbia, attached to a larger meeting of the Mont Pelerin Society. This milestone provides a good opportunity to reflect on what’s changed and what has remained the same among the community of public policy and educational institutes that engage with Atlas Network to advance liberty…..

….It is notable, however, that this first workshop shows an early appreciation of how technology could change think tanks’ business models for the better. As a small example, Greg Lindsay of CIS Centre for Independent Studies in Australia spoke about how “fundraising by mail” had not seemed cost-effective until the organization invested in a “word processor” that allowed outreach at scale.’

Atlas: ‘Director of Development

Vale Sloane is Atlas Network’s Strategic Partnerships Advisor. In this role, Vale connects Atlas Network’s community of donors with opportunities to support the 500+ organizations in our global network of partners. This includes providing our donors with regular updates on important partner achievements, identifying investment opportunities to support major partner projects, and keeping donors updated on how their support is making a real difference in the worldwide freedom movement.

Vale joined Atlas Network in 2016 on the Institute Relations team, where he managed relationships with Atlas Network’s global network of partners and directs various grants and awards programs. He also participated in the Charles Koch Institute’s Koch Associate Program in 2016-2017. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, Vale attended the University of Sydney where he received his Bachelors of International and Global Studies (2013) and Bachelors of Laws (2015). 

He worked in Australian politics throughout college and after graduation, including on local, state, and national election campaigns between 2009-2015. Vale has also worked in the private sector as Business Development Manager at an eLearning company prior to joining Atlas Network. He lives in Washington, DC, and enjoys reading, traveling, and watching Netflix.’

For more articles and blogs on Ageing Democracy, Australian Politics, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Koch Network, Political Strategy, Populist Politics, Tanton Network & White Nationalism click through:

Anglosphere Oligarchs – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Rishi Sunak and US Radical Right Libertarians in UK – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

BBC: 55 Tufton Street London – Libertarian Think Tanks – Koch Network

55 Tufton Street London: US Koch & Tanton Networks’ Think Tanks – Radical Right Libertarians and Nativists

Nativist Conservative MPs for Fossil Fuels versus Science, Education, Research, Analysis & Society

Anglosphere Conservatives Links – ADF Alliance Defending Freedom – Heritage Foundation

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

Anglosphere Nativist Libertarian Social Economic Policies or Return of Eugenics?

In the past decade we have witnessed a political shift to the nativist and libertarian right in the Anglosphere, but described as ‘conservative’, appealing to the important above median age voter, less educated, more socially conservative, obedient and monocultural, but e.g. in UK leading to austerity measures?

Most of these ideas come from the classical or liberal economists of the past including Calvin, Smith, Ricardo et al. and also includes old eugenics based ideas of dour Christian men like Malthus on population, Galton on social Darwinism or eugenics, and worse, Madison Grant in the US who influenced Hitler.

What we observe now are attempts to implement these restrictive and regressive policies by ‘conservative’ parties, but it’s very chaotic, and destructive to parties e.g. hollowing out with fewer informed members.  However, their policies are mostly unpalatable to thinking citizens e.g. Brexit, Trump, pro fossil fuels, anti climate science, demands for significant cuts to government spending with tax cuts for the 1-10%, ongoing attacks on ‘elites’, ‘wokeness’, women, minorities, education and science for a disempowered society.

This reflects influence of Koch Network ‘radical right libertarian’ Atlas think tanks which are now global but especially influential in the US, Tufton Street UK e.g. IEA Institute of Economic Affairs and equivalents IPA (founding partner was Murdoch’s father) and CIS in Australia, with opaque funding sources and donors. These think tanks actually do more PR or lobbying of policies versus informed research and seem to run protection for media oligopolies themselves, right wing governments, fossil fuels and big (global) business; with a clear crossover to John Tanton Network white nativism or eugenics, masquerading as environmental ‘hygiene’ round refugees, immigrants, population growth, minorities and the ‘great replacement’.

Now pro bono UK trade advisor and former Australian LNP conservative PM Tony Abbott, was given suggestions by the Koch linked think tank IPA in Melbourne, for a potential new government in 2012.  In fact seventy five suggestions, below the article excerpts, give a clear indication of antipathy towards government, taxes, budgets, public spending, social security, health care, climate measures, environmental management etc.

Any informed media and journalists need to be aware as they may challenge MPs, think tankers etc. but with neither deep insight nor analysis of causes, does not inform anyone? 

If one uses an Australianism, that’s just ‘too easy’ and comfortable while retaining access to decision makers, with the latter given too much unearned respect for old ideas masquerading as moden policies.

Be Like Gough: 75 Radical Ideas To Transform Australia

Written by John Roskam, Chris Berg and James Paterson

5 August 2012

If Tony Abbott wants to leave a lasting impact – and secure his place in history – he needs to take his inspiration from Australia’s most left-wing prime minister.

No prime minister changed Australia more than Gough Whitlam. The key is that he did it in less than three years. In a flurry of frantic activity, Whitlam established universal healthcare, effectively nationalised higher education with free tuition, and massively increased public sector salaries. He more than doubled the size of cabinet from 12 ministers to 27.

He enacted an ambitious cultural agenda that continues to shape Australia to this day. In just three years, Australia was given a new national anthem, ditched the British honours system, and abolished the death penalty and national service. He was the first Australian prime minister to visit communist China and he granted independence to Papua New Guinea. Whitlam also passed the Racial Discrimination Act. He introduced no-fault divorce.

Perhaps his most lasting legacy has been the increase in the size of government he bequeathed to Australia. When Whitlam took office in 1972, government spending as a percentage of GDP was just 19 per cent. When he left office it had soared to almost 24 per cent.

Virtually none of Whitlam’s signature reforms were repealed by the Fraser government. The size of the federal government never fell back to what it was before Whitlam. Medicare remains. The Racial Discrimination Act – rightly described by the Liberal Senator Ivor Greenwood in 1975 as ‘repugnant to the rule of law and to freedom of speech’ – remains.

It wasn’t as if this was because they were uncontroversial. The Liberal opposition bitterly fought many of Whitlam’s proposals. And it wasn’t as if the Fraser government lacked a mandate or a majority to repeal them. After the 1975 election, in which he earned a 7.4 per cent two-party preferred swing, Fraser held 91 seats out of 127 in the House of Representatives and a Senate majority.

When Mark Steyn visited Australia recently he described political culture as a pendulum. Left-wing governments swing the pendulum to the left. Right of centre governments swing the pendulum to the right. But left-wing governments do so with greater force. The pendulum always pushes further left.

And the public’s bias towards the status quo has a habit of making even the most radical policy (like Medicare, or restrictions on freedom of speech) seem normal over time. Despite the many obvious problems of socialised health care, no government now would challenge the foundations of Medicare as the Coalition did before it was implemented.

Every single opinion poll says that Tony Abbott will be Australia’s next prime minister. He might not even have to wait until the current term of parliament expires in late 2013. The Gillard government threatens to collapse at any moment. Abbott could well be in the Lodge before Christmas this year.

Abbott could also have a Fraser-esque majority after the next election. Even if he doesn’t control the Senate, the new prime minister is likely to have an intimidating mandate from the Australian people. The conditions will suit a reformer: although Australia’s economy has proven remarkably resilient, global events demonstrate how fragile it is. The global financial crisis, far from proving to be a crisis of capitalism, has instead demonstrated the limits of the state. Europe’s bloated and debt-ridden governments provide ample evidence of the dangers of big government.

Australia’s ageing population means the generous welfare safety net provided to current generations will be simply unsustainable in the future. As the Intergenerational Report produced by the federal Treasury shows, there were 7.5 workers in the economy for every non-worker aged over 65 in 1970. In 2010 that figure was 5. In 2050 it will be 2.7. Government spending that might have made sense in 1970 would cripple the economy in 2050. Change is inevitable.

But if Abbott is going to lead that change he only has a tiny window of opportunity to do so. If he hasn’t changed Australia in his first year as prime minister, he probably never will.

Why just one year? Whitlam’s vigour in government came as a shock to Australian politics. The Coalition was adjusting to the opposition benches. Outside of parliament, the potential opponents of Whitlam reforms had yet to get organised. The general goodwill voters offer new governments gives more than enough cover for radical action. But that cover is only temporary. The support of voters drains. Oppositions organise. Scandals accumulate. The clear air for major reform becomes smoggy.

Worse, governments acclimatise to being in government. A government is full of energy in its first year. By the second year, even very promising ministers can get lazy. The business of government overtakes. MPs start thinking of the next election. But for the Coalition, the purpose of winning office cannot be merely to attain the status of being ‘in government’. It must be to make Australians freer and more prosperous. From his social democratic perspective, Whitlam understood this point well. Labor in the 1970s knew that it wanted to reshape the country and it began doing so immediately.

The time pressure on a new government – if it is to successfully implant its vision – is immense. The vast Commonwealth bureaucracies and the polished and politically-savvy senior public servants have their own agendas, their own list of priorities, and the skill to ensure those priorities become their ministers’ priorities. The recent experience of the state Coalition governments is instructive. Fresh-faced ministers who do not have a fixed idea of what they want to do with their new power are invariably captured by their departments.

Take, for instance, the Gillard government’s National Curriculum. Opposing this policy ought to be a matter of faith for state Liberals. The National Curriculum centralises education power in Canberra, and will push a distinctly left-wing view of the world onto all Australian students. But it has been met with acceptance – even support – by the Coalition’s state education ministers. This is because a single National Curriculum has been an article of faith within the education bureaucracy for decades; an obsession of education unions and academics, who want education to ‘shape’ Australia’s future. (No prize for guessing what that shape might look like.) A small-target election strategy has the unfortunate side-effect of allowing ministerial aspirants to avoid thinking too deeply about major areas in their portfolio.

So when, in the first week as minister, they are presented with a list of policy priorities by their department, it is easier to accept what the bureaucracy considers important, rather than what is right. The only way to avoid such departmental capture is to have a clear idea of what to do with government once you have it.

Only radical change that shifts the entire political spectrum, like Gough Whitlam did, has any chance of effecting lasting change. Of course, you don’t have to be from the left of politics to leave lasting change on the political spectrum.

Both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan proved conservatives can leave a paradigm-shifting legacy. Though Thatcher’s own party strayed from her strongly free-market philosophy, one of the major reasons the British Labour Party finally removed socialism from their party platform under Tony Blair was because of Margaret Thatcher.

Ronald Reagan not only presided over pro-market deregulation and tax cuts during eight years in the White House, but also provided the ideological fuel for the 1994 Republican revolution in the House of Representatives, led by Newt Gingrich, which enacted far-reaching welfare reform.

Here we provide a list of 75 policies that would make Australia richer and more free. It’s a deliberately radical list. There’s no way Tony Abbott could implement all of them, or even a majority. But he doesn’t have to implement them all to dramatically change Australia. If he was able to implement just a handful of these recommendations, Abbott would be a transformative figure in Australian political history. He would do more to shift the political spectrum than any prime minister since Whitlam.

We do not mean for this list to be exhaustive, and in many ways no list could do justice to the challenges the Abbott government would face. Whitlam changed the political culture. We are still feeling the consequences of that change today. So the policies we suggest adopting, the bureaucracies we suggest abolishing, the laws we suggest revoking should be seen as symptoms, rather than the source, of the problem.

Conservative governments have a very narrow idea of what the ‘culture wars’ consists of.  The culture of government that threatens our liberty is not just ensconced in the ABC studios, or among a group of well-connected and publicly funded academics. ABC bias is not the only problem. It is the spiralling expansion of bureaucracies and regulators that is the real problem.

We should be more concerned about the Australian National Preventive Health Agency – a new Commonwealth bureaucracy dedicated to lobbying other arms of government to introduce Nanny State measures – than about bias at the ABC. We should be more concerned about the cottage industry of consultancies and grants handed out by the public service to environmental groups. We should be more concerned that senior public servants shape policy more than elected politicians do. And conservative governments should be more concerned than they are at the growth of the state’s interest in every aspect of society.

If he wins government, Abbott faces a clear choice. He could simply overturn one or two symbolic Gillard-era policies like the carbon tax, and govern moderately. He would not offend any interest groups. In doing so, he’d probably secure a couple of terms in office for himself and the Liberal Party. But would this be a successful government? We don’t believe so. The remorseless drift to bigger government and less freedom would not halt, and it would resume with vigour when the Coalition eventually loses office. We hope he grasps the opportunity to fundamentally reshape the political culture and stem the assault on individual liberty.

1 Repeal the carbon tax, and don’t replace it. It will be one thing to remove the burden of the carbon tax from the Australian economy. But if it is just replaced by another costly scheme, most of the benefits will be undone.

2 Abolish the Department of Climate Change

3 Abolish the Clean Energy Fund

4 Repeal Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act

5 Abandon Australia’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council

6 Repeal the renewable energy target

7 Return income taxing powers to the states

8 Abolish the Commonwealth Grants Commission

9 Abolish the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

10 Withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol

11 Introduce fee competition to Australian universities

12 Repeal the National Curriculum

13 Introduce competing private secondary school curriculums

14 Abolish the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

15 Eliminate laws that require radio and television broadcasters to be ‘balanced’

16 Abolish television spectrum licensing and devolve spectrum management to the common law

17 End local content requirements for Australian television stations

18 Eliminate family tax benefits

19 Abandon the paid parental leave scheme

20 Means-test Medicare

21 End all corporate welfare and subsidies by closing the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education

22 Introduce voluntary voting

23 End mandatory disclosures on political donations

24 End media blackout in final days of election campaigns

25 End public funding to political parties

26 Remove anti-dumping laws

27 Eliminate media ownership restrictions

28 Abolish the Foreign Investment Review Board

29 Eliminate the National Preventative Health Agency

30 Cease subsidising the car industry

31 Formalise a one-in, one-out approach to regulatory reduction

32 Rule out federal funding for 2018 Commonwealth Games

33 Deregulate the parallel importation of books

34 End preferences for Industry Super Funds in workplace relations laws

35 Legislate a cap on government spending and tax as a percentage of GDP

36 Legislate a balanced budget amendment which strictly limits the size of budget deficits and the period the federal government can be in deficit

37 Force government agencies to put all of their spending online in a searchable database

38 Repeal plain packaging for cigarettes and rule it out for all other products, including alcohol and fast food

39 Reintroduce voluntary student unionism at universities

40 Introduce a voucher scheme for secondary schools

41 Repeal the alcopops tax

42 Introduce a special economic zone in the north of Australia including:

a) Lower personal income tax for residents

b) Significantly expanded 457 Visa programs for workers

c) Encourage the construction of dams

43 Repeal the mining tax

44 Devolve environmental approvals for major projects to the states

45 Introduce a single rate of income tax with a generous tax-free threshold

46 Cut company tax to an internationally competitive rate of 25 per cent

47 Cease funding the Australia Network

48 Privatise Australia Post

49 Privatise Medibank

50 Break up the ABC and put out to tender each individual function

51 Privatise SBS

52 Reduce the size of the public service from current levels of more than 260,000 to at least the 2001 low of 212,784

53 Repeal the Fair Work Act

54 Allow individuals and employers to negotiate directly terms of employment that suit them

55 Encourage independent contracting by overturning new regulations designed to punish contractors

56 Abolish the Baby Bonus

57 Abolish the First Home Owners’ Grant

58 Allow the Northern Territory to become a state

59 Halve the size of the Coalition front bench from 32 to 16

60 Remove all remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to international trade

61 Slash top public servant salaries to much lower international standards, like in the United States

62 End all public subsidies to sport and the arts

63 Privatise the Australian Institute of Sport

64 End all hidden protectionist measures, such as preferences for local manufacturers in government tendering

65 Abolish the Office for Film and Literature Classification

66 Rule out any government-supported or mandated internet censorship

67 Means test tertiary student loans

68 Allow people to opt out of superannuation in exchange for promising to forgo any government income support in retirement

69 Immediately halt construction of the National Broadband Network and privatise any sections that have already been built

70 End all government funded Nanny State advertising

71 Reject proposals for compulsory food and alcohol labelling

72 Privatise the CSIRO

73 Defund Harmony Day

74 Close the Office for Youth

75 Privatise the Snowy-Hydro Scheme

For more related blog and articles on Australian Politics, Climate Change, Conservative, Economics, Fossil Fuel Pollution, Global Trade, Libertarian Economics, Media, Political Strategy, Radical Right Libertarian, Science Literacy, Taxation and WTO click through here and below:

Radical Libertarian Disinformation Machine – Koch Network by Nancy MacLean

BBC: 55 Tufton Street London – Libertarian Think Tanks – Koch Network

Libertarian Nativist Lobbying Against EV Electric Vehicles in Support of Fossil Fuels

Immigration Restriction – Population Control – Tanton Network

Rishi Sunak and US Radical Right Libertarians in UK – Koch Atlas Network Think Tanks

Russian Dark Money – Influencing British Politics, the Conservative Party, the GOP and European Right

55 Tufton Street London: US Koch & Tanton Networks’ Think Tanks – Radical Right Libertarians and Nativists

55 Tufton Street London: US Koch & Tanton Networks’ Think Tanks – Radical Right Libertarians and Nativists

Of late UK investigative journalists especially centred round The ByLine Times and The New European have discovered the ‘architecture of influence’ at 55 Tufton Street, used to keep the Conservative Party in power, and achieving Brexit. This has been done by using US linked Koch and Tanton Network think tanks to produce ‘research’ and responses that support radical right libertarian ideology and white nativism (mutually inclusive relationship), whether eugenics or Anglo exceptionalism.

Of course it’s no coincidence that many similar think tanks, also under the influence or auspices of Koch and Tanton Networks, plus the Koch influenced Atlas Network; have very influential presence in the Anglosphere especially, i.e. the US, UK and Australia.

From The New European:

‘55 Tufton Street, SW1: The most influential address you’ve never heard of

It’s home to pro-Brexit groups and climate change sceptics. But just how much power over this government is wielded by the tenants of 55 Tufton Street?

James Ball 13th January 2021

There is, at most, a very short list of political addresses familiar to a UK audience. The most famous, of course, is 10 Downing Street, the cramped office, official residence and party venue of the prime minister.

A British audience will probably also be familiar with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is Washington DC, the address of the White House.

Far fewer will be able to name a third political address. If they can, it’s almost certainly 55 Tufton Street, which is strange as it has no official role in government life and isn’t home to any departments.

Instead, as the spiritual home (and often the physical base) of a loose coalition of nine think tanks and campaign groups – plus as a shorthand for a wider network less connected to that physical address – it has, through soft power and indirect influence, had perhaps more influence on the course of UK politics over the past decade than many departments and most political parties.

Now, as we look to the next decade, and several parts of the machine seem to be turning their attention towards climate change and the path to (or away from) net zero, is a good time to look at the history of the network, its tactical approach, and what it’s doing – if for no reason other than to try to make sure its future efforts are less successful than those in the past.

The first of the Tufton Street groups to really come to public attention was the cleverly named TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), which brands itself as a “non-partisan” and “grassroots” organisation. Its modus operandi was to consistently highlight apparent government waste, often picking issues with relatively small sums of money at hand, but which would attract clear public scorn and media coverage.

Unlike other think tanks which would conduct detailed policy research aimed at informing actual government policy, the TPA would aim squarely at the media, producing easy-to-digest briefings for which the stories would write themselves. Journalists, through a combination of time pressure and laziness, would find it incredibly easy to transfer TPA research onto front pages.

This media-friendly approach extended further: any reporter who has needed to get a reaction quote for a story on a Saturday knows that many press officers won’t bother to answer the phone.

This was never the case with the TPA – not only would someone always pick up the phone, but they’d also have a quote tailored to the exact story within 15 minutes.

People would look for reasons of chumminess, ideology, or the old school tie as to why some places get quoted more than others. The reality often comes down to who will reliably pick up the phone and deliver the goods. These media-savvy tactics were soon transferred more directly into changing British politics.

As one of their conditions for forming a coalition government with David Cameron’s Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats secured a referendum on whether the UK should switch to the Alternative Vote system.

TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott became the director of the cross-party NOtoAV campaign, and adopted a playbook that became very, very familiar in an even higher-profile referendum a few years later. The campaign came up with a highly dubious figure as to the cost of switching to AV, settling on £250m, a total debunked by numerous fact-checkers as highly inflated.

This inflated number was then deployed against a series of emotional images, including veterans and even premature babies in a neonatal ward. The latter had the slogan “She needs a maternity unit, not an alternative voting system.”

The high-minded but hapless Yes campaign, faced with the task of both explaining a new voting system and persuading the public to care about it, was outgunned entirely: AV was defeated in a 68-32 landslide.

This success and the growing profile of the TPA encouraged the Tufton Street think tanks – which included a broader network of like-minded organisations not based there but who would regularly meet to swap ideas, tactics and generally to socialise – and led to more financial support and to more success.

Tenants of No.55 have included Leave Means Leave, the climate change sceptics of the Global Warming Policy Forum and Net Zero Watch, the “anti-woke” New Culture Forum, the anti-surveillance group Big Brother Watch and Migration Watch, which led the charge for lower net immigration.

Down the street are the Adam Smith Institute and the Institute of Economic Affairs.

A key source of ire for Tufton Street opponents is that none of the organisations in the network disclose their funders – and on the few occasions where details have leaked out, these organisations have shared donors, and have taken money from some with clear agendas of their own, co-producing events with tobacco or alcohol industry groups, for example.

Where these detractors misstep, however, is that they assume this means those donors then need to order these think-tankers as to what they should say in their subsequent reports or research.

The reality is more subtle: there is no need to give any instruction of this sort, because the companies already know these organisations are on-side.

It is akin to the old Humbert Wolfe rhyme: “You cannot hope to bribe or twist/thank God! the British journalist/ But, seeing what the man will do/ unbribed, there’s no occasion to.’’

There need not be some backroom deal or secret set of orders – the organisation is funded because its staffers sincerely believe in deregulation, and donors feel free to commission work on topic areas that suit them, knowing in advance the recommendations will line up.

It should be noted that this is not unique to the right of politics, or to the Leave side of the argument.

A pro-EU donor commissioning an internationalist think tank staffed by trained and sane economists could commission research on, say, trade with the EU and be confident in getting a report they like.

Tufton Street’s splashy tactics and closeness with those in power came to the fore through the Brexit referendum and its aftermath – a set of actions so covered and so familiar that to retread them all here would be tedious in the extreme.

Tufton Street alum ran the campaign, became Number 10 staff, and held huge sway over the eventual deal that was shaped.

Perhaps the most surprising thing was how little the tactics needed to change: £350m a week for the NHS was nothing different from the NOtoAV £250m tactic, albeit with a larger number and on a larger stage.

Neither the left nor the centre of the British political world have come up with anything to trouble the longstanding playbook of the Tufton Street network.

Popular threads on Twitter – and pub talk among the animated Remain camp – paints the above network as something akin to a deliberate conspiracy, a concerted effort to infiltrate politics and create hidden networks of influence.

The people involved laugh at this as a deranged conspiracy theory.

And yet it isn’t wrong on the actual facts: Tufton Street serves as a nexus of political influence, and does work to tie up corporate and other undisclosed interests into the political process.

But it doesn’t do it in a way that feels malign to those involved: it is a network of people who agree with each other on most issues, have been colleagues and often friends, and who obviously have sought employment in organisations aligned with those they’ve worked at in the past. Who wouldn’t agree to have a drink with an old friend they used to work with?

Who wouldn’t consider a talented former colleague for a job in their new workplace? Who wouldn’t pick up the phone to pick the brains of their old boss when they’re stuck on a problem?

These all feel very normal and natural to any of us. It’s just very, very different when, almost without you noticing, your friendship group has become the group of people effectively running the country – or at least a decent chunk of it.

This is not a case of the banality of evil, but of the banality of influence.

It’s also why a fairly accurate set of accusations can be made to sound ridiculous to the people targeted by them – there isn’t one person or a small cabal deliberately directing all of this. But that should hardly matter.

The Tufton Street network is moving on from Brexit and deregulation (although not leaving them behind) and increasingly becoming active on climate.

Their playbook still hasn’t changed. Nothing has forced it to do so.

What’s needed is something that counters it – instead of what we keep doing, time and again, which is merely publicly complaining that it keeps on working.’

Blogs and articles regarding Koch Network, Tanton and related architecture of influence: 

Anglosphere Legacy Media: White Nativist and Libertarian Propaganda for Ageing Conservative Voters – Australia, Brexit & Trump

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Ecosystem of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere 

Dumbing Down and Gaming of Anglosphere Media, Science, Society and Democracy

Anglosphere Triangle – Immigration – Environment – Population Growth – Radical Right Libertarians

Nationalist Conservative Political Parties in the Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Ideology and Populism for Votes

Libertarian Curricula – Science and Culture Wars vs. University Maths Teacher Training

Recently in Australia, Alan Tudge, the Minister of Education in an embattled ruling LNP conservative coalition, approaching an election, proposed changes to maths teacher training at universities in Australia with an emphasis upon ‘explicit instruction’ versus the more contemporary ‘constructivist approach’ of building knowledge and self learning.

The report is quite unclear on what the evidence is for the need to introduce regressive steps for teaching methodology; based upon supposed correlations with headline test scores including PISA and text analysis of subject or course descriptions, to count how often key words e.g. constructivism occur, but not actual classroom observations?

In short, explicit instruction is teacher centred and directed while constructivist approach is learner centred allowing deep experiential understanding.  Nonetheless, both styles are acceptable depending upon the situation e.g. the UK RSA Cambridge TEFLA or CELTA, for the teaching of English as a foreign language, uses both, and more.  

This is exemplified in the PPPP model Preview, Present, Practice and Produce when used in a lesson starts teacher centred with explicit instruction (or direction), includes much student to student interaction, then moving towards more constructivist methods to finish with student centred production and formative ‘testing’ of individuals to judge outcome, or not.

However, support for changes comes from a report produced by the Sydney based CIS Centre for Independent Studies which is part of the Koch Network’s global Atlas Network of think tanks; another think tank in Melbourne, the IPA Institute of Public Affairs, informs often any climate science denying LNP government, and on libertarian socio-economic policies.

The CIS according to Sourcewatch is described as neoliberal and socially conservative, coincidentally was founded by a maths teacher to replicate, now another Koch linked economics think tank, the IEA in the UK which supported Brexit.  

As explained below the report writers have unclear higher qualifications to research, evaluate and propose methodological solutions to improve maths teaching and student outcomes; the report validity was questioned by various experts.

Anything Koch, IPA, CIS and LNP related generally includes strong antipathy towards universities and higher education, research, gender studies, LGBT, CRT, teaching, learning and science, especially climate science, and later the same networks were linked by DeSmog UK to Covid resistance to related science, vaccinations and measures to protect society.

This has been discussed previously in blog titled Climate Confusion, Astroturfing, Pseudo-Science, Population Movement and Radical Right Libertarians.  The aim appears to be neutralisation of competitive and other threats e.g. regulatory, round big business or large corporate entities, especially fossil fuels and related.

What are the outcomes of explicit teacher instruction?

Firstly it precludes peer to peer learning, like word of mouth is trusted, and is a valid way of learning, includes the ‘school of life’.

Secondly it suggests rote learning, and avoids the higher level skills according to Bloom’s Taxonomy beyond simply know, understand and apply, but higher level skills of analysis, evaluation and synthesis.

More deeply, the roots of radical right libertarian socio economic ideology, whether economics of Adam Smith, on population with Thomas Malthus, or Galton on eugenics, is to keep a major part of any society, especially voters, unenlightened on climate science, higher education and now Covid science to maintain 18th or 19th century power relationships favouring the more deserving ‘top people’ over less deserving society.

Final outcome would involve the ‘hidden curriculum’ that explicit instruction would encourage and condition i.e. a teacher is a figure of authority in imparting knowledge or facts while students are not required to apply higher level skills.

Encouraging a return to master serf relationships and not questioning authority.

From The Campus Morning Mail of Stephen Matchett:

‘Tudge warns teacher education faculties (again) November 29, 2021

For the second time in a month the Education Minister has warned education faculties the “Government will use the full leverage of the $760 million it provides” if they continue to use teaching methods he does not approve of.

Last week Mr Tudge criticised a “constructivist approach” in initial teacher education maths courses, as opposed to “explicit instruction,”(CMM November 26). In October, he warned that “ideological resistance” in teaching training limits the use of explicit instruction and phonics.

The ITE peak body did not respond to what could be a threat and might be a promise from the minister on math teacher training, with the Australian Council of Deans of Education declining to comment on Friday.

However, the Media Centre for Education Research did issue a statement, quoting Macquarie U maths education academics, Dũng Trần, Michael Cavanagh and Rebecca Bull commenting on the Centre for Independent Studies report which informed Mr Tudge’s new statement. They questioned some claims and suggested some of its evidence was not “robust,” adding “we would welcome a more comprehensive discussion about the intricacies of effective mathematics teaching.”

Summary of the report is here:

‘Policymakers have increasingly looked to improvements in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) as key to overcoming declining education outcomes.

The analysis in this paper validates this concern and places a specific lens on ITE for beginning mathematics teachers.

Despite clear evidence of the efficacy of explicit instruction, it is not practiced consistently and regularly in Australia’s mathematics classrooms. The analysis shows that high-performing countries more frequently apply the principles and priorities consistent with explicit instruction.

An analysis of ITE courses for beginning mathematics teachers finds a lack of emphasis on explicit instruction. This significantly contributes to insufficient implementation of evidence-based practice — particularly explicit instruction — in Australian schools.

For Australian students’ mathematics outcomes to improve, ITE must improve with it. For this reason, ITE providers require clear and unambiguous expectations for genuinely incorporating evidence-based practices into their mathematics ITE courses.

Some examples of practices that teachers should be able to demonstrate on completion of mathematics ITE include:

• Clear teacher demonstrations that recognise implications of cognitive load.
• Guided, scaffolded practice opportunities that allow students to students to verbalise.
• Immediate corrective feedback to clarify and confirm students’ progress.
• Spaced and interleaved practice to facilitate cumulative review of content.’

The full report ‘Failing to teach the teacher: An analysis of mathematics Initial Teacher Education’

Glenn Fahey, Jordan O’Sullivan, Jared Bussell   25 November 2021 | AP29

The writers of the report above have indirect expertise and unclear qualifications e.g. Fahey is economics, whilst the other two, Sullivan and Bussell are apparently teachers but have no qualifications listed, simply a general biography on the CIS website.

Related links of interest, articles and blogs:

Covid Misinformation – Gut Instinct & Beliefs vs. Science & Critical Thinking

Covid-19 Climate Science Vaccination Misinformation PR and Astro Turfing

Eco-System of Libertarian Think Tanks and White Nativism in the Anglosphere

Conspiracy of Denial – COVID-19 and Climate Science

Anglosphere – Radical Right Libertarian Socioeconomics and Authoritarianism

Think tanks’ call for ‘freedom’ really promises authoritarianism