From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

IPA cries poor. Here’s an interesting group email from IPA chief John Roskam to supporters, which sheds a little light on the group’s finances. It now has just over 3200 members and an annual budget of $3.22 million, and Roskam is passing the hat around to make up the final $440,000 of it. You might remember Crikey’s attendance at the IPA’s 70th birthday bash in Melbourne earlier this year, attended by Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and Andrew Bolt … turns out the gig made a pretty penny. You can check out one of the IPA’s recent annual reports here — doesn’t tell you much about who the money’s coming from …

I’m writing to you this afternoon to give you the exciting news about how much the Institute of Public Affairs has grown, and to let you know how our fundraising is going.

The two incredible victories we’ve had on freedom of speech were achieved because of your voluntary financial contribution to the IPA. Without your money the IPA would not exist. The IPA has no endowment and nothing to fall back on if people stop donating.

We won on the law that would have made it illegal to make a political comment that offended someone and we won on government regulation of the media.

On both issues the Gillard government capitulated. As you know the IPA fought hard, and often alone.

You must remember… those that want to take away our freedoms are funded, and often controlled by the government. For example, this year the Human Rights Commission received $28 million from the government. The Grattan Institute that wants higher taxes received $30 million from the government. If you added all the government funding to people and organisations who want to take away our freedoms it would come to hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year.

The IPA’s budget for 2012/13 is $3.22 million — and every cent of it comes from voluntary contributions from our members and supporters. $3.22 million pays for the operations of the IPA including the salaries of 20 staff, the rent on our office, as well as events, printing, and mailouts.

That’s why I’m always talking to you about membership and our finances. The more members we have the louder is our voice for freedom in Australia.

I’m delighted to say that as of today the IPA has 3,221 members. On 1 July 2012 we had 1,816 members. Our target was to reach 3,000 members by December this year so as you can see we’ve well and truly reached it! Our next target is 4,000 members by the end of 2014, and 5,000 members by the end of 2015. One of the most pleasing things about our membership growth is how many IPA members are getting their friends and relatives to join. There’s no better recommendation than having an existing IPA member say ‘I’m a member — and I think you should be too!’

I mentioned that the IPA’s budget for 2012/13 was $3.22 million. Of this so far this year we have raised $2.78 million.

Some recent fundraising milestones include our 70th Anniversary Dinner which raised $303,610. It was a wonderful evening attended by 524 guests. Rupert Murdoch’s fantastic speech on the morality of markets has now been watched 36,750 times on the internet. Also, at the end of last year our Christmas Appeal raised $115,421 from just over 400 donors.

Between now and 30 June we need to raise $440,000 to make our budget for this year. To close the gap we have two major fundraising appeals coming up. The first one is very exciting and you’ll find out about it very soon. The second appeal is our End of Financial Year Appeal. Last year we raised $160,844 from that appeal and we hope to at least match that result this year.

Look out for out for a very special email in the next few weeks.

Thank you for all of your support for freedom in Australia.

regards John

John Roskam
Executive Director

Bangladesh clothing concerns. There have been protests and strikes from Bangladeshi clothing workers in the wake of the factory collapse that killed 382 people (900 more are still missing). Many of the dead were garment makers, and the factory was illegally built. Some of the clothes were being exported to Western nations — British brand Primark and Spanish company Mango have admitted their clothes were made at the site, while there are claims Benetton was supplied from the factory.

There have long been concerns about low safety standards in the country’s garment industry (for example, last November 111 people died in a factory fire). Tips asked you which clothes sold in Australia were made in Bangladesh — that’s not to say exports should cease, but perhaps we should ask more questions about why prices are so low. Would you pay $1 more for your T-shirt if that meant a worker could survive the day? Here are some of your responses:

“Woolworths (Big W) currently stock masses of menswear prominently displaying its Bangladeshi origin. The humdrum rows of cheap apparel now seem quite chilling in light of recent events.”

“Garments sold here, made in Bangladesh — t-shirts from Kmart. Sorry to say we bought some. They are well made but were very cheap. We should know better.”

“Kmart has very cheap t-shirts and tops … I have seen ‘Made in Bangladesh’ labels on them in the past.”

“The Lowe Stores in Sydney sell the ‘Traders Brand’ of polo type shirts which are all cotton, marked ‘Made in Bangladesh. Very well-made also and plenty of material to fit the gutsy type person. I have brought two of them a few weeks back.”

“Lowes store in Tweed Heads selling ‘stubbies’ brand shirt labelled ‘Made in Bangladesh’.”

“My friend was a clothes buyer for Jay Jays (owned by the Just Group — Just Jeans, Peter Alexander, Portmans etc) and before he left the company a few months back, he’d just started travelling to Bangladesh. Not sure if that means they’ve started manufacturing there or not.”

Libs float Brisbane boat campaign. The scare campaign on boats is ramping up in Brisbane. A Crikey reader in the Stafford Heights neighbourhood (on the electorate border of Labor-held Petrie and Lilley) found the flyer below in the letterbox in the last couple of days. The sender? Liberal Senator Sue Boyce …

Maxine at the theatre. Melbourne’s liberal elite were left in hysterics by prolific playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s new conservative-bashing play at the Melbourne Theatre Company last night. Our spies report fleeting Labor star Maxine McKew, among the opening night crowd at Southbank Theatre, thought it was pretty funny.

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au or use our guaranteed anonymous form