The cry for freedom last week echoed around the vaulted feasting chamber at the National Gallery of Victoria. The hall was packed to its stained-glass rafters with plutocrats, captains of industry, Liberal Party celebs, log-rollers and special pleaders of a variety of stripes.

It was the 70th birthday party of the Institute of Public Affairs. Because the institute never publicly reveals the identity of its donors and is out there proselytising on all manner of clients' causes, it is sometimes referred to as the Institute of Paid Advocacy.

Illustration: michaelmucci.com

Its 75-point flat earth plan ''to transform Australia'' includes returning income tax powers to the states; scrapping the mining and carbon taxes; abolishing the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Australian Communications and Media Authority; repealing laws that require radio and TV broadcasters to be balanced; closing the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science; privatising a whole heap of government-owned businesses, including SBS; breaking up the ABC and putting its bits and pieces out to tender; abolishing tobacco plain-packaging legislation and the alcopops tax; and, for northern Australia, lowering income taxes, accompanied by the construction of lots of dams. From this agenda it's not difficult to work out who is paying the piper.

Basically, its a return to trickle-down economics, where the institute's rich and powerful cronies are allowed to fatten-up on more government assets, while enjoying lower taxes and less regulation. Sooner or later the benefits of this brazen plunder by oligarchs will trickle down to the rest of us.