Grace, you won't find the IPA mentioned anywhere on the home page of the site, or anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge, other than attached to the biogs of a few of the contributors. The CIS is listed under "Collaborative Editors" along with Oxfam, QUT and ACM. We've never received any money from them, but at one stage the editor of their journal was providing suggestions of potential contributors and articles.

The issue isn't with questioning people's motivations, it is with relying on your a priori assessment of those motivations to judge the truth of their arguments. That is not critical thinking it's having a closed mind. The truth of an argument doesn't depend on the character of the person advancing it, it depends on the facts and the evidence. One of the key planks in the philosophy of this site is that no-one has a monopoly on the truth.

Graham, you say, "you won't find the IPA mentioned anywhere on the home page of the site, or anywhere else, to the best of my knowledge..."

Please read again the first sentence of my first post and note the brackets. I did not say that the IPA is a sponsor of yours like CIS, I said the IPA is another Australian right-wing think tank like CIS. But thanks for the further clarification anyway, both on CIS and IPA and your relationships (or not) with them.

You also claim that I make judgments on the truth of arguments based on "the character of the person advancing it". Not so, Graham, I can hardly make assessments on the character of people I do not know. On the other hand, I can make judgments on the value of their opinions by noting who employs them and pays them to publish those opinions.

Of course facts and evidence matter. But sometimes those facts and evidence can be given a spin to suit a particular position, or opposing facts and evidence are not given appropriate weight, or facts and evidence can be wrongly reported. This happens all the time in public life, as I am sure you are aware.

As to your final words, "no-one has a monopoly on the truth", amen to that. It actually surprises me a little, because I got the impression that the relativity of truth was not your ball-game

Just as the IPCC misuses facts about hurricanes, which was the reaosn for Dr Chris Landsea resigning as an author for their upcoming report.

Why is there an assumption that people who work for "right-wing think tanks" have barrows to push and people who work for "left-wing NGOs" (think Greenpeace) don't.

WEll, now that we've got that covered, lets talk about government control over freedom of choice. Personally, I like the idea of government intervention. It should be the elected government's responsibility to take precautionary measures. They have a responisbilty to the community to try and structure a safe enviornment.

I'm not going to try and intellctualise the issue because I dont know that much but from a layman's point of view, people from whatever strata, whether it be the housewife, the entrepreneur or the young teen need to be guided. I guess an example could be the introduction of product disclosure statements so that people can make informed decisions.

I wish government took more initiative in the controlling of our society, especially of industry, why aren't they preventing company layoffs?!

Grace ,I don't have time right now,but you haven't a clue about the topic upon which you are pontificating.Just open a small business in NSW at the moment,and the roles will quickly be reversed.
When I have the time,I will pluck your indulgences one by one.

Grace, you essentially say that the people from these institutions are guns for hire who will say anything that suits their paymasters and then you claim you are not commenting on their character! Of course you are.

If the facts have been spun then it is up to you to prove it, not just to assume it on the basis of your assumptions about the people allegedly spinning.

And just for the record I don't believe that truth is "relative". In this case your assumption was correct, I'm no postmodernist. In saying that no-one has a monopoly on the truth I am saying that no-one is right 100% of the time, and that we are often not in a position to be in command of the whole of the facts necessary to make an informed decision.

Why don't you get onto arguing about the article, and if you're not sufficiently across the subject, find an article to comment on where you don't need to cast aspersions on the author to enter into the conversation? You must have some area of expertise apart from the vast right wing conspiracy out there!