Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (ATA)

Background

The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance describes itself as a grassroots activist body “dedicated to fighting Australia’s crippling levels of taxation, over-regulation, and government waste.”¹

It was launched on May 1, 2012 by Menzies House, a website catering to “conservative, centre-right and libertarian thinkers and activists.”² ³

ATA describes itself as a “decentralised network designed to empower individuals to take action in their own communities, and create their own ‘franchises’ within an appropriate framework.”⁴

Before the ATA was launched, its business plan said the organisation’s goal was “to become Australia’s leading and most influential centre-right grassroots advocacy body in order to transform Australia to a new level of free market public policies by focusing on cutting tax, regulation and waste”.

The organisation is incorporated as a private company and has two directors. Records held by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission lists executive director and founder Tim Andrews and his mother as the company’s two directors.

Stance on Climate Change

The ATA has been a “sponsor” of several of the Heartland Institute’s International Conferences on Climate Change (ICCC) – events featuring climate science deniers and anti-climate change activists from across the world. Most recently the ATA sponsored the 10th ICCC conference in Washington DC and the ninth ICCC conference, held in Las Vegas.

The ATA described the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change, an event featuring only speakers who are skeptical of man’s influence on climate, as “the place to get the FACTS on climate change – and not the alarmist spin you read in the media.”⁵

Tim Andrews has previously told DeSmog that the ATA‘s sponsorship of the Heartland conferences is not financial and is “limited purely to promoting the conference through our networks. It does not involve any financial commitment.”

The ATA‘s listing of “academic fellows” includes climate science contrarian Patrick Michaels, of the Cato Institute. Michaels once admitted that about 40 per cent of his funding came from the fossil fuel industry. The ATA‘s board of advisers includes climate science denialist blogger Jo Nova.

The ATA‘s first campaign was to prevent the passing of legislation that would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions in Australia.

Funding

The ATA is registered in Australia as a private corporation, which means that no financial information is available. Records held by the Australian Business Register show the ATA is not registered for the Goods and Services Tax. The revenue threshold over which companies must register for GST in Australia is currently $75,000, suggesting the ATA‘s income is modest.

Key People

The ATA‘s executive director and founder is Tim Andrews. An original business plan for the ATA, written by Andrews, said of Andrews:

“Since 2008, Timothy Andrews has resided in Washington DC learning effective advocacy and grassroots mobilisation techniques from internationally recognised campaigning leaders. He was employed for two years under the tutelage of Grover Norquist at Americans for Tax Reform, universally recognised as the US’s most influential tax-reduction advocacy group. Timothy Andrews was also a participant in the Koch Associate Program, an intense year-long training program by the Charles Koch Institute to train a select group of activists to become more efficient agents for change.”

According to ATA‘s website, as of September, 2015:⁶

Timothy Andrews — Executive Director.

Board of Advisors

Tom Switzer — Editor of the Spectator Australia.
Ross Cameron — former Liberal party politican
Julian Leeser — head of government relations at Australian Catholic University and former executive director of the Liberal Party-affiliated Menzies Research Centre.
Theresa Moltoni — Managing Director and Principal Consultant of professional services firm IRIQ
Warwick Morris — former chairman of mining company Sumatra Copper and Gold
Sam Kennard — Managing director of Kennards Self Storage
Ron Manners — Founder/Executive Director, Mannkal Economic Education Foundation, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, member of the board of overseers for the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, member of the Mont Pelerin Society
Joanne Nova — Perth-based climate science denialist blogger
Ken Phillips — Former director, work reform unit of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA).

Academic Fellows

Alex Robson — economist and lecture at Griffith University, former adviser to Liberal Party MP Malcolm Turnbull
Professor Sinclair Davidson — economist at RMIT university and senor research fellow at free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs
Dr Mikayla Novak — senior research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs
Professor Jason Potts — economist at RMIT university
Michael Keane — public health lecturer at Monash University
Patrick Michaels — Senior Environmental Fellow at the Cato Institute.

Actions

May 2015

The ATA placed a half-page newspaper advertisement in The Australian newspaper supporting Danish climate change contrarian Bjorn Lomborg. The advert claimed that a decision by the University of Western Australia to reject a $4 million government grant to host Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center was an example of “academic censorship”.

The ATA used a fundraising website to gather cash to pay for the advert. As DeSmog reported, several supporters held antipathy towards climate change science. One wrote that “these climate fascists need to confronted” while another said that “green religion bigots” had been exposed. Another suggested there should be more adverts “to challenge the climate hoax”.

May 21–23, 2012

The ATA was an official co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute’s 7th International Conference on Climate Change.

Patrick Michaels, a member of ATA‘s board of Advisers and “Chief Scientific Adviser” to the affiliated website www.StopGillard’sCarbonTax.Com, is a speaker at the event.⁷

May 1, 2012

The ATA launched at an event in Sydney, hosted by Tom Switzer. Among the guests photographed were prominent climate science deniers Australian Liberal Senator Nick Minchin, executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs John Roskam, Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi and News Corp columnist Miranda Devine.

According to the ATA‘s business plan, the organisation had a goal “to become Australia’s leading and most influential centre-right grassroots advocacy body in order to transform Australia to a new level of free market public policies by focusing on cutting tax, regulation and waste”.

September 2011

The Spectator magazine described Tim Andrews as “one of the masterminds behind the anticarbon tax protests” in Australia.

February 2011

Registered the web domain “stopgillardscarbontax.com,” a website opposed to Julia Gillard’s carbon tax on Australia. The website described itself as “the central portal and information resource for Australians opposing Julia Gillard’s destructive Carbon Tax.”

The website included a petition that urges elected representatives to vote against the proposal.⁸

Notable “Partners” of the website included:⁹

Menzies House
CANdo
The Mankaal Economic Research Foundation
The Liberal Democratic Party
The Consumers and Taxpayers Association
The Carbon Sense Coalition
The Institute for Private Enterprise
The Australian Liberal Students’ Federation
The Federal Young Liberal Movement
The Democratic Labor Party
The Australian Libertarian Society
The Christian Democratic Party
The Australia Tea Party