The executive director of the Institute of Public Affairs, John Roskam, is standing down after 17 years, and warns that freedom of speech and the country’s cultural institutions are under threat while CEOs stand by and virtue signal on social media.

Mr Roskam said he would stay on as an IPA senior fellow after standing down in June next year and was leaving the organisation in good shape, with 8000 members and after launching the careers of a host of conservative politicians including federal MPs James Paterson and Tim Wilson and Victorian MP Louise Staley.