Quick! Send us money! These cigars don't buy themselves, you know...

Interesting report at The Age on Sunday about the IPA.

For a "think tank" (using the term loosely) whose executive and members get a lot of screen time on the ABC and columns in the Murdoch press and elsewhere, it's always handy to read how they're viewed more broadly.  Their mere ubiquity gives an impression of credibility. 

The main point of the article, though,  is that it seems many prominent corporations who used to support them no longer will, because they recognise that it devotes a lot of effort to running a nutty extremist climate change denying line.

At the same time, they are doing very well financially due to a recent surge in donations.  We still don't know who the corporate donors are, although it is openly acknowledged that Gina Rinehart helps fund it.  (That's no surprise: their "we think everyone should be on a level playing field, except when it comes to those parts of Australian our favourite billionaire Gina Rinehart invests in" policy made that obvious.)

The article says British Tobacco was (or is still - it's not clear)  a donor.   That's not news, really, but it's worthwhile reminding people when you get IPA mouthpieces like Chris Berg rubbishing cigarette plain packaging in the media.  Mind you, Chris Berg was also writing in 2010 that internet material for terrorist bomb making was not really worth worrying about:

When they're not utterly stupid, they are oddly banal. Another Inspire recommendation is to shoot up lunch spots that are popular with government workers. So in a decade, al-Qaeda has gone from targeting the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon - the two symbolic organs of American power - to threatening Starbucks outlets one at a time.

Then there is ''Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom'', which suggests repurposing a home pressure cooker to become an explosive device. Such a device is weak, apparently, so the magazine recommends it is placed ''close to the intended targets''.

It is surprisingly hard to detonate explosives successfully.

That was, of course, before the Boston bombings killed 3 people and maimed and injured 264 others.

You don't have to be wrong about terrorism, climate change, stagflation, the health effect of wind turbines, and tobacco plain packaging to work for/be associated with the IPA, but it certainly helps.

In any event, it's amusing to read the reaction Andrew Bolt  which I will now paraphrase as follows:

"Look!  The Age says the IPA are corporate shills, but then admits that more money comes from donations!   Stand up, everyone,  and be proud that the IPA has become a mutual support club for climate change nutters, and for people like me who do lousy research on aboriginal issues and then get taken to court and lose and want to act like a martyr for the next 2 years. 

And send money - more money!  The price of freedom, especially my freedom to do lousy research via Google and ridicule people based on mistake, is not cheap!"

What Andrew doesn't address is how much more money the place needs.  I see that, after a fairly lengthy delay, the IPA financials for 2011/12 are finally available (I have been checking for them for the last year or so.) 

They indicate that in 2011, it received $562,000 in donations; in 2012: $2,612,000.  How much of that is loose change from Gina's deep pockets is not clear.  (And seriously, Andrew Bolt, do you think a donation from any body controlled by Gina should not be counted as effectively coming from a corporate interest?)

Total income went from $2.4 million to $4 million.

The current year income surplus after expenses went from $217,000 to $313,000, with a total retained surplus of $1.544 million.  

And yet,  Andrew Bolt and Sinclair Davidson have been big on asking for donations over the last year or so, and there is no doubt that the martyrdom of Andrew Bolt played big with his fanbase.

So, yeah, the anti-mooching "think tank" is very big on panhandling. Even though I would have expected the cigars for the board meetings are free....*

And Tony Abbott says that the IPA "...has supported capitalism, but capitalism with a conscience."

Yeah, sure.  To put it at its most charitable, Abbott is living in the past.

To be less charitable, and more realistic:  he's a dill who doesn't know who to listen to....

* reliable details from John Roskam to dissuade me of how I like to imagine meetings there are welcome.  I wonder how many ex smokers are on staff too.