Mood:
caffeinatedTopic: independent media
A respected US think tank has been doing some naval gazing at their own sector from the dynamic home of think tanks over there. Mark Latham once referred to this robust culture as impressive with a specialised lobby on every street corner (perhaps referring to Washington itself).
The FPRI itself is based in Philadelphia and according to a report of ABC radio national Asia Pacific programme 18 Jan 2008 none of Australia's think tanks make the top list of 20 or 30. That means neither the cashed up Lowy Institute with its top academic profile, nor Australia Institute with its well qualified and talented (ex) leader Clive Hamilton (see below), nor the right wing business funded mobs like Institute of Public Affairs with ratbags like Jennifer Marohassy on land use and conservation issues, or Centre for Independent Studies.
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And this could well be a legacy of 10 years of anti democratic control tactics against civil society organisations by the Howard Govt said to be reversed by the new Rudd Govt:
...maybe (ironically same day, same newspaper edition) .....
Political gag can be of no public gain | The Australian
"Julian Cribb | January 09, 2008 IN a poor omen for scientific and intellectual freedom in Australia, barely a month after the Rudd Government was elected it appears to have been caught trying to censor science."
...which resulted in this balancer by the Minister Kim Carr, in the following week Education supplement ..
Debate charter promised for boffins 16 Jan 2007
The background to the report is here:
The Global "Go-To Think Tanks”: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations in the World
Gone are the days when a think tank could operate with the motto “research it, write it and they will find it”. Today, think tanks must be lean, mean, policy machines. The report that follows summarizes the findings of a pilot project to identify some of the leading think tanks in the world, and provides lists of what might be called the “go to think tanks” in every region.
- View The Global "Go-To Think Tanks”: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations in the World, 2007 (24 pages, 265K
)
- More about the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at FPRI
Related is local Clive Hamilton moving on after a distinguished contribution to public life via his Australia Institute: 
