Maybe I am an idiot but it seems to me that the author gave a balanced description of AUSTRALIAN based and funded think tanks whether they are left, right, or presumably centrist.
As far as can make out I made an ideologically neutral comment that think tanks should be called propaganda factories. An observation which to me is self-evidently true in ALL cases.

And then Curmudgeon lauches into his tirade. A tirade which was essentially a description of his own ideological biases.

Yes, think tanks and NGOs have ideological barrows to push, and yes, they get funded by people and organisations that agree with them or might even benefit from the policies they push. So what? Most of us are smart enough to correct for their predictable biases. I think they make a positive contribution to policy debate by researching and exploring ideas beyond the mainstream. If we judge them by the content of their arguments not their ideological predispositions, where is the harm?

Curmudgeon

I'm not feeling confused but you could enlighten us to who are these "hard left" think tanks you refer to?

rhian

Part of their "harm" is in their pervasiveness. This is often coupled with the fact that their agenda/bias is often not mentioned by the media who are giving them a voice.

Kevin Rennie/Top Ender

think you've misread something, or perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear. Never mentioned hard left think tanks. Said that those I would characterise as hard left, meaning commentators in general, cannot stand any opposition at all - that is, they cannot stand the feeble opposition of think tanks.

I see from your other post, that I did not see before, you have a set against the IPA. You do realise that its a tiny organisation? It might have an office, and it might have a staff (just), but probably one of the reasons that it won't talk about funding is that it doesn't have much. In any case, as it is well-known for being right wing I can't see why anyone would be concerned over its sources of funding, such as they are.. Of course the money would be from conservative organisations. So what?

As I noted before, the real drivers of the public agenda have been the big environmental organisations and NGOs. The think tanks are at least not as poor as the bulk of the climate sceptic organisations, which don't have any funding at all, but they are still poor and, contrary to your assertion, there aren't that many of them.

Time to find another target.

Kevin

most of us know what a think tank is, and (as you yourself say) most of us can work out their agenda from the content of their argument.

There is no media conspiracy to disguise thier intentions that I can perceive.

I think on some issues they do a better job of thinking through issues and looking at the bigger picture than many of the vested interests (unions, business groups, NGOs, etc) that otherwise would dominate policy debate.

Geez, and you're supposed to be intelligent people ??