News

Ever heard of “The Sunrise Project”?  Most Australians haven’t – but this little known environmental activist organisation funded in part from foreign donors has just gifted $495,000 to Get Up for the express purpose of campaigning for Labor and the Greens in the lead up to the election next year.

What’s more, the donation took place just weeks before new laws regarding donations from foreign sources come into effect. While The Sunrise Project does not reveal its funding sources, it was effectively “outed” when Wikileaks emails by the US-based Sandler Foundation admitted providing them with funding.

Despite Australia’s wealth of natural resources, our energy costs are among the highest in world - and it’s seriously impacting on the competitiveness of Australian companies.

New research by the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney has drawn a stark contrast between the US and Australia in term of energy policy and the flow through effect for businesses and consumers.

Concerning new evidence points to the continuing decline of freedom of speech and increasing restriction of political and social debate at universities across Australia.

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has released its annual “Free Speech on Campus Audit” and the results confirm what many parents and friends of university students know: they are under increasing pressure to conform to “group think” as universities introduce policies restricting free speech on campus.

Support for religious freedom is an issue that bridges the political divide – with today’s Newspoll finding that 59% of Australians support new laws to protect individuals, schools and companies from being discriminated against because of their religious beliefs.

The vast majority of both Labor (57%) and Coalition (65%) voters believe it’s important to ensure religious freedom in Australia.

The Government is currently considering its response to the recent Religious Freedom Review, that received more than 15,500 submissions.

For a prime example of the bully tactics used by the left, look no further than “Sleeping Giants” an online “community” that obsesses in targeting businesses to gain power over those whose opinions they don’t like.

Sleeping Giants was formed in the US and now exists in 11 different countries.  Here in Australia they’ve managed to get companies including American Express, Huggies and SpecSavers to withdraw their advertising dollars from Sky News with their #AdShame twitter campaign - just because they don’t like Sky News airing a variety of opinions.

Remember the childhood chant of “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me”?  Well that’s not the case in our nation’s capital. In the latest example of political correctness gone mad, there’s a push to review suburb and street names that may be deemed “hurtful”.

The ACT Legislative Assembly will this week debate a motion by Labor Member for Murrumbidgee Bec Cody to review all place names in order to eliminate those that “cause pain” or cast “villains as heroes”.

Ordinary Aussies, in a wide range of superannuation funds, will have their savings slashed by Labor’s franking credit tax – according to evidence provided by the Financial Services Council to a parliamentary inquiry examining Labor's proposal.           

What started off as a hit on individuals and self-managed funds has now been revealed as a massive grab across the board affecting millions more hard-working Australians who are saving for their retirement.

The Financial Review Reports the extent of Labor’s tax grab:

Mark Bouris is one of Australia’s best small business, into large business entrepreneurs. He’s done it not once but twice and on a national scale. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mark shares some interesting reflections on the policy impacts of Labor’s election policies, which with the mess in Canberra are escaping scrutiny.

There is no hiding the impact from these changes. We think Mark has a point ...

Mark Bouris: Why Bill Shorten’s policies are bad for business

Hard working Brickies, carpenters, plasterers, painters, sparkies and labourers will be among the hardest hit by Labor’s planned changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.

Not only will house prices suffer (on top of the existing downturn in the market) and small investors slugged, but a new report has found that there will be up to 32,000 fewer construction industry jobs due to Bill Shorten and Labor’s tax hikes.