As conviction becomes rarer in politics, and politicians become sales people for the ideas of others, in too many cases, the role of think tanks and those funding them deserves closer investigation.
One American think tank, the Heritage Foundation, had an unwanted moment in the sun recently when Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was forced to disavow connections with them and their plan for his next presidency, Project 2025, after the public got wind of some its Handmaid’s Tale style details.
The problem is that at least 140 people who have worked with Trump are officially involved with Project 2025 in one capacity or another, and his pick for vice-president, J.D. Vance, of cat lady fame, has just written a glowing foreword for a book by Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, in which he reminded Americans that ‘the Heritage Foundation isn’t some random outpost on Capitol Hill; it is and has been the most influential engine of ideas for Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump.’
Sadly, this is true, and there are a long list of other unelected think tankers at work influencing what America calls democracy, mostly of a hard right or libertarian flavour, and funded by big business interests.
Australian politics was once relatively free from this sort of thing, but as party membership has declined across the board, think tanks have become increasingly important drivers of policy here as well, both in and out of government.
Tanks for all the fish
Each major political party has its official think tank in Canberra (all of which receive public money, incidentally). These organisations release research papers, lobby stakeholders, push ideas in the media and develop policy recommendations, as well as providing extra income to struggling academics.
The Liberals have the Menzies Research Centre, the Nationals have the Page Research Centre and Labor has the Chifley Research Centre, each named after a respective party icon.
The Greens even have one (not named after Bob Brown for some reason) – it’s called The Green Institute.
Beyond official party organisations, other think tanks have become increasingly prominent in recent years. On the progressive side, the Australia Institute, led by Richard Denniss, has taken a leading role in bringing economic and scientific smarts to government scrutiny, while the two big players on the muddier side of the field are the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) and the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS).
The IPA has links with the climate-science denying Heartland Institute, and is thought to have been funded over the years by a conglomeration of interests and individuals including Exxon, Shell, Caltex, BHP-Billiton, Gina Rinehart and the Murdoch family.
The CIS keeps its funding sources secret, but is affiliated with the United States-based Atlas Network, once described as a ‘self-replicating think tank which creates think tanks’. Atlas is linked in turn with the tobacco industry, oil and gas producers, and right wing political movements across the world.
The problem is that the general public often has no idea where these ideas are coming from, or why they are being propagated. The policies themselves tend to remain hidden until it’s too late for the public to do anything about them, having been distracted by divisive nonsense which has no actual impact on their lives.
Meanwhile the unelected representatives of influential think tanks continue to operate with very little scrutiny; lieutenants in the vast army of lobbyists who walk the halls of every parliament in Australia.
Tanking democracy
More publicly, there are variously-funded political advocacy groups like GetUp! and its self-declared foe Advance, which recently announced its intention to spend $5m attacking the Greens between now and the next election with the aim of inflicting ‘significant damage’.
As every vandal knows, it’s a lot easier to destroy things than to create something new or useful.
Earlier this year, Peter Dutton thanked Advance after they used every dirty trick in the book to help him defeat the Voice, which bore even more poisonous fruit last week when PM Anthony Albanese backed away from his promise to pursue Makarrata, or at least an official, government-supported truth-telling process, in spite of the fact that many countries have found such processes necessary to emerge from the bloody shadows of the past.
Mr Dutton was quick to announce that there would be ‘no revisiting of truth-telling’ under a Liberal government led by him, which surprised precisely no one.
Truths tend to be inconvenient, at best, when you’re being controlled by interests who wish to preserve the status quo, no matter how stupid or destructive that is.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
