For decades now some of the most important public policy that's shaped our country hasn’t been designed by politicians or public servants – it has come from think tanks.

Among the most influential in Australia is the Institute of Public Affairs, the IPA, a right-wing think tank that prides itself on being the policy brain of the conservative movement.

But the organisation is in decline, it’s generating less new ideas and it’s finding it harder to get the support of business.

Today, national correspondent at The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe on the decline of the IPA.

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Guest: National correspondent at The Saturday Paper, Mike Seccombe

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