You really have to go to Washington DC to see the decline and fall of the United States or at least of American science. — Dr Pat Michaels

Are the exits secured? A lot of people will want to bolt for the doors when they find out my talk is about local government. — Dr Jeremy Shearmur

Dr Michaels is an American climatologist and global warming sceptic now with the libertarian Cato Institute. Dr Shearmur is a philosopher and political scientist from the ANU. Both were speakers last weekend at the ‘2nd Australian Libertarian Society Friedman Conference’. These conferences rely heavily on scholars but they are not as formal as academic conferences. They feature informal talks, often polemical, rather than lectures or papers with lots of citations. They usually canvass topical issues, ranging last weekend from ‘Young Women in Politics’ or ‘Identity Politics’ to tax and labour market reform or the case for schools run for profit. Some of the speakers are performers as well as scholars. Dr Shearmur donned a large Mickey Mouse hat to show his admiration for the Disney Company which created the township of Celebration in Florida. Celebration is a private enterprise small town which operates outside the traditional local government system, provides all the usual services from libraries to garbage disposal, and could be a model for new suburbs in Canberra or any Australian city where people want freedom of choice.

Dr Michaels’s talk on ‘The Politics of Science’ was also a dramatic performance as he guyed the role of a pernicious Al Gore offering to fund any obedient warmists in the audience. American scientists, as Michaels sees it, are becoming servile instruments of government. It’s a warning that applies in Australia. Consider the CSIRO.

Should the states resume the power to impose income tax? In another and almost forgotten life many years ago I had a go in my simple-minded way at tax reform as leader of the opposition in the Parliament of New South Wales. It seemed then as plain as the nose on my face that if states were charged with building and running schools, hospitals, roads or whatever, they should be able to raise the money for the job and answer to the taxpayers for the way they spent it. This had always been the way until the federal government during the second world war remembered the maxim ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ and abolished state income taxing powers. It substituted a Commonwealth monopoly of income tax, with a provision for hand-outs to the supplicant states.

Various premiers including Labor leaders such as William McKell opposed this usurpation of state power and foresaw an end to Australian federalism. They were right but there was no going back. Or there seemed to be none until Prime Minister Fraser raised the possibility of the Commonwealth reducing its income tax to allow room for the states. I welcomed the proposal and called on Dick Hamer (later Sir Rupert), the Liberal premier of Victoria to elicit his support. But he not only adamantly opposed the idea but strongly urged me not even to mention that we had discussed it. That was the attitude of most state leaders. They much preferred to blame the Commonwealth for underfunding them than incur the electoral odium of raising income taxes themselves. I do not think the Commissioners of Audit will have greater success. When the decline and fall of Australian federalism is written, the states themselves will be seen to have been largely responsible.

Everyone has heard the criticism of the proposed national curriculum that its history curriculum reflects a biased socialist interpretation and belittles Australia’s western heritage. But Stephanie Forrest of the IPA has presented a different line of criticism — that many of the history textbooks which the major publishers are now bringing out to meet the requirements of the curriculum contain not only ‘outrageous statements’ but ‘factual errors’ on a dramatic scale. Her critique applies to their treatment of ancient as well as modern history. Referring to the chapter on Ancient Rome in one these textbooks, she writes: ‘My short assessment of this 39-page chapter found 61 obvious factual errors.’ They include dates and names as well as omissions and biases. I am in no position to judge most of these matters. But I agree with her that parents are entitled to be deeply concerned and entitled to a response. Forrest’s critique appears in the current issue of Quadrant. Worth looking up.

Of all the protest movements mounted by preservationists against developers in the recent decades — some successful, some not, some obviously right, some more problematic — one now universally seen as on the side of the angels was the campaign to save ‘Nutcote’, the home and workplace of May Gibbs in Sydney’s Neutral Bay and turn it into a museum in her honour. May Gibbs was the creator of Bib and Bub and the author of those masterpieces of Australian children’s literature, Gumnut Babies and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. The other day the Nutcote Trust celebrated the 20th anniversary of the opening of the May Gibbs museum. The indefatigable Governor of New South Wales, Professor Marie Bashir, told the crowded gathering that she introduces all visitors to Government House to the Big Bad Banksia Men in the gardens and to Mr Lizard, the goanna. It was only fitting that when Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George set foot in Sydney a young woman presented Prince George with a copy of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.