And of course the IPA has direct links to the AEI and if effectively an Australian franchise of the USA Right Wing Noise Machine.
Sharon Beder describes it all in great detail in her book Global Spin.

During the election campaign there was a posting on this topic on an internet forum run by opus dei. It was interesting to notice that many of the opinions thus expressed basically supported the perspective on fact checking that Chris Berg and the IPA promotes.

It is also interesting top note that the IPA has direct links with opus dei too. One of the IPA's senior talking heads is the founder/director of a prominent right-wing Christian publisher which I suspect is an opus dei outfit. Namely Connor Court

Thank you Alan Austin.

Hopefully we will see a fact checking entity established soon. That is one practice we could usefully import from America. However it is akin to a last resort, as our political culture is now so debased.

I think that there is great value in the publication of evidence where public lies are told.

I am however very sceptical of the practical effectiveness of the tool and the committment of many ofnthe fans of fact checking to an even handed dealing with truth.

Inconvenient facts are dismissed as unimportant or met with spin by some claiming to be concerned with truth.
Julia Gillard was not met with an impossible situation in regard to her committment on carbon tax. She had options,
- Labor could have been lead by someone else. She hardly got the resounding majority to suggest the voters wanted her to lead the party.
- We could have gone back to the polls.
- Abbott could have had the chance to try and form a better deal the the Greens to form government (which probably would have given Labor a better shot at a majority in the election which would probably have followed)

Howards statements made about a GST are in a very different league to Gillards commttment given Howard made is change of mind clear in the lead up to an election and went to the election with the GST as an announced policy. Putting the two together is an attempt to confuse the issue.

The gendered lies and distortions of the gender studies crowd who continually misrepresent DV are ignored and dismissed by some who are apparently concerned about truth yet a Sydney shock jock creates outrage in the same crowd supposedly because of the gendered nature of his falsehoods.

A lot of the fact checking starts to look a lot like a fundy rligious type talkng about truth, only rally interested in convenient truth, not so committed when it does not fit their priorities.

R0bert

There is an element of black comedy to this, except that it is not at all funny. Why?
The IPA runs an outfit which purports to defend and promote the values of Western Civilization which simultaneously laments the erosion of these values. Related to this is an essay by the Furedy's in the current Quadrant in which the authors lament the fact that the kind of teaching now done in Western universities has changed from some kind of Socratic dialogue/investigation (teaching students how to think), to a situation in which sophistry now rules (teaching students only what to think). As if Western education was ever much more than teaching students WHAT to think.

That having been said Chris Berg is the now archetypal ignorant sophistic nerd. He is an in your face example of how degraded some Western opinion makers have become. He was once the editor of the IPA Review. Furthermore it seems to me that the IPA is a haven and breediong ground for sophistry. Perhaps it should be renamed Sophist Central.

It also seems to me that most (but not all) of the writers who are featured in Quadrant are rank sophists too, including, and especially its current editor.

In order for wealthy minorities to remain wealthy, they have to:

1. Create Republicanism
2. Tell a lot more than 1000 lies to fool the majority of real human beings into believing they should remain poor and powerless.

Romney was an Angel compared to past & present US & Australian politicians.

If you want true democratic justice and equality then Shakespeare said it best in Macbeth (Another Republican!) :

SON
Was my father a traitor, Mother?

LADY MACDUFF
Ay, that he was.

SON
What is a traitor?

LADY MACDUFF
Why, one that swears and lies.

SON
And be all traitors that do so?

LADY MACDUFF
Every one that does so is a traitor and must be hanged.

SON
And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

LADY MACDUFF
Every one.

SON
Who must hang them?

LADY MACDUFF
Why, the honest men.

SON
Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

No One is ever given power. it is ALWAYS taken! Lies are an integral-energy part of THAT sublimation.

The BIGGEST lies today are temporarily-indulging women & migrants, creating OVERPOPULATION to "get the rich-party started". This infinite aspiration on a finite planet is INSANE. To make it seem plausible, PRIVATISATION & GLOBALISATION & FRACKING are good lies! But they are not and will never work. Within one generation, these idiocies aim to create 9 billion 1st world citizens. That would require 12 planet earths. Yet the LIES still go on! The hatred people feel towards Gillard & Abbott has firm foundations here. Not just because they are liars but they are so clumsy about it.

As Shakespeare would say: Lies, damned lies. It stinketh to high heaven! For in rushing to rebuplic-cliff's edge 75% shall not return in one pieceth!

How amusing you are Alan:

"(b) specific promises which turn out impossible to deliver due to external factors, such as Julia Gillard's carbon tax commitment stymied by the hung Parliament,"

Impossible to deliver of course is the guiding principle of this government; and equating Abbott's 'lie' about a meeting with Pell with, well you haven't even mentioned these lies:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/awu_scandal_fourth_file_goes_missing_from_court_archives/

As for Romney's "porkies" why no mention of Obama's lies about Benghazi.

Really Alan, your political and ideological bias is too apparent.