It has in the past funded and created advertising campaigns for anti-Labor candidates, and has had an impact on Liberal Party policies,[10][11] according to former prime minister John Howard.

The founders were prominent businessmen,[14] and current executive director John Roskam says of the occasion: "Big business created the IPA".

[14][18] Robert Menzies described Looking Forward as "the finest statement of basic political and academic problems made in Australia for many years".

[13] Over this period, the Institute argued for Australia's migration rate to be halved, which drew criticism from the Australian Industries Development Association and The Age.

[13] The institute also identified inflation as a major issue, and opposed the abolition of the means test, called for lower taxes, criticised the introduction of the Trade Practices Act, advocated for fewer restraints on foreign investment and celebrated Britain joining the European Economic Community.

This organisation had as "an immediate target … the removal of the present Labor government in Canberra", while the IPA ostensibly stayed at arm's length in an attempt to be perceived as above party politics.

[26] In 1989, the IPA NSW – which had always been administratively and ideologically distinct – changed name to the Sydney Institute, and transitioned from neo-liberal think tank to discussion forum.

[25] The IPA cooperated with the Tasman Institute on Project Victoria, which provided a blueprint for the privatisation and deregulation of the Victorian economy when Jeff Kennett became premier in 1992.

Former prime minister John Howard was interviewed at the dinner by Janet Albrechtsen about the spill, but did not explicitly support either candidate.

[36] In 2023, the IPA collaborated with free market think tanks Centre for Independent Studies, LibertyWorks, conservative lobby group Advance, and several fossil fuel companies to coordinate the No campaign during the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum.

[4] The IPA Victoria was founded during World War II by businessmen in response to the feared growing power of the Labor Party and international socialism, with founder C. D. Kemp putting the case to the Victorian Chamber of Manufactures sub-committee as such:[11] The freedom of Australian business is today gravely threatened by forces whose unswerving and rigid purpose is the entire nationalisation of industry and the establishment of socialism as the permanent form of Australian society; this would mean the elimination of private capital and shareholding, profit, freedom of private enterprise and the transfer of the control of industry to civil servants and union leaders.

These forces are centred politically in the Labor Party and industrially in the Trade Unions; they are supported by an extremely powerful and growing section of public opinion.The IPA Victoria was founded as an apolitical organisation, and rejected the IPA NSW's strategy of "direct short term political action to defeat the Labor Party with an emphasis on propaganda".

[47] The IPA Victoria's direct involvement in federal politics was reappraised after the 1943 election, and the organisation handed over responsibility for fundraising to the extra-parliamentary wing of the United Australia Party.

The IPA Victoria remained involved in non-Labor politics, including financing by-election candidates and participating in the foundation of the Liberal Party of Australia.

[47] During Charles Kemp's time as director, the IPA Victoria focused its political engagement on the non-Labor parties, and did not "seriously attempt" to influence Labor politicians.

[47] In 1978, the IPA and the Australian Council of Trade Unions prepared a booklet on partnership in industry, but the ACTU baulked at the association and its name was not on the final publication.

[53] Howard has also said that its policies are influenced by the IPA, which "contributes very strongly to the intellectual debate on issues and that in turn has an impact on what attitude the Liberal Party takes".

[64] The High Court ultimately ruled that no compensation was required, in British American Tobacco Australasia Limited and Ors v. The Commonwealth of Australia.

[66][67] In 2008, the institute facilitated a donation of A$350,000 by G. Bryant Macfie, a climate change denier, to the University of Queensland for environmental research.

[71] In 2019 the IPA published an essay by Clive James, Chapter 22 of the 2017 publication, on its website, which was critical of what it called "climate change alarmism in the upmarket mass media".

[73] This conclusion was heavily criticised by climate scientists who pointed to methodological flaws in the research and declared it unworthy of publication.

[76] Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has pointed out that some data were shifted in time by approximately 35 years, leading to the omission of warming that has occurred since 1965.