Australia Plan to Transform Remote Regions Comes From Think Tank

Australia has a bold new plan to develop its northern regions over the next 20 years, and that plan comes from a think tank.  Here is more, from the Economist:

On June 18th Mr Abbott’s government published a white paper outlining plans for developing northern Australia over the next 20 years. Such attention is long overdue.

The plan drew on proposals by the Institute of Public Affairs, a libertarian think-tank. The institute has promoted its ideas in tandem with a group in Western Australia founded by Gina Rinehart, whose iron-ore wealth from the Pilbara region, in that state’s north, has made her Australia’s richest person. Both outfits want northern Australia to become a hub for Asian investment. To encourage this, they have pressed the government to make the region a “special economic zone”. They want it to have lower business and income taxes than the rest of Australia.

Australia's Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) was founded in 1943.  Here are some of the think tank's papers on developing northern Australia.

This is the latest example of how think tanks impact public policy around the globe, in nearly every country (and region) in the world.

According to the University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings, Australia has 29 think tanks.