Australia's hapless nominal "environment" minister stretches the truth to breaking point over and over again Australia's minister for coal mining is reaching hitherto
undreamt of heights in the fields of exaggeration, evasion and outright
mendacity — and he doesn't like IA much either, writes Lachlan Barker.
In October of 2014, environment minister Greg Hunt was interviewed on ABC 7.30 and said the following:
“We are saving Australians from a $36 billion ... a $36 billion carbon tax.”
Immediately, I saw it was another lie from the minister – further of
the Federal Government’s policy to demonise – and then yet further
demonise – the carbon tax.
So I did the research and verified that, indeed, the minister was wilfully misrepresenting the cost of the carbon tax.
The carbon tax brought in $15.4 billion over two years. At the time Hunt made this assertion, figures were available showing the cost was nowhere near his $36 billion figure.
In February 2014, the Australian Financial Review reported that the carbon tax had brought in $6.6 billion in its first year of operation and was projected to bring in $7.2 billion in the second year.
Now, Hunt knew that when he made his $36 billion assertion, or if he didn’t then he is in the Arthur Sinodinos position of having to admit to being either a knave or a fool.
So I followed up by contacting the minister’s press secretary, asking him:
“Can you provide any evidence to support this $36 billion claim made by the minister?”
He then began the Federal Government’s usual mumblings of how the
scrapping of the carbon tax would free the economy and the usual
rubbish.
So not getting an answer, I asked again — still no answer.
I continued to back him into a corner, until he realised there was no escape and suddenly blurted out:
“Is Independent Australia an accredited news organisation?”
Caught off guard, I replied:
"As far as I know it is, why do you ask that?”
He then saw his escape and said:
"Look, email me your questions.”
He then rang off. So I emailed through the same question and, of course, never heard from him again.
Pictured below is the email I sent through, which received no reply:
Now, when I said above, “As far as I know...”, I would like to point out that I have no doubts, then or now, about Independent Australia’s veracity.
Day after day exacting journalists present unbiased stories with
verifiable facts. No, what was worrying me was the way the Federal
Government see the media landscape. The Abbott Government have basically
divided the press into the Murdoch press – pro-Abbott Government – and
everybody else — anti-Abbott Government.
News organisations that present unbiased stories with verifiable data are considered – perversely – biased. Independent Australia, The Guardian, Fairfax – the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age
– and, of course, the ABC are all considered biased against the Abbott
government and are thus not “accredited” by the Abbott Government.
Now IA has had some issue with accreditation before, as this story by Callum Davidson from 2013 shows. So I contacted editor Dave Donovan and asked about our status
His reply was:
What does he [Hunt’s press secretary] mean by "accredited".
That is the Canberra press gallery you are referring to [in Davidson’s story], which is only one body.
We are classed as news by Google, so I'd suggest saying that.
But in the end, this whole sorry exercise in weaselling out of a
difficult question is seemingly the Abbott Government’s main tactic for
dealing with organisations that are “biased” against them.
So then I thought that would be the end of the $36 billion matter,
until December, when Greg Hunt suddenly began using the correct figure
for the carbon tax, $15.4 billion.
So I jumped on that and emailed through the following question:
Dear Minister Hunt,
On 29 October 2014 you said in interview with Leigh Sales that the Carbon Tax cost Australians '$36 billion'.
Now you are on record as saying that the carbon tax cost '$15.4 billion'.
Can you explain why you are now saying the Carbon Tax cost has halved?
Needless to say, I have had no reply.
Really, it was a Ministry of Truth from 1984 style episode, with the minister’s logic as follows:
In October 2014, it was true that the carbon tax cost $36
billion, but now in January, without anything changing, it is now true
that the carbon tax cost less than half that.
But then we moved on from the cost to whether the carbon tax was
effective, and once again Hunt was involved in another
ministry-of-truth-cherry-picking-only-the-figures-that-suit-me exercise
to further demonise the carbon tax.
On ABC Radio's AM program, on 5 January 2015, Greg Hunt said the following:
“...the rate of emissions reduction during the two years of the
carbon tax was one-sixth only of the rate of emissions reduction in the
half decade beforehand.”
Thankfully, The Conversation put that claim under the spotlight with their 'Fact Check' program.
The Conversation got an expert in the field to analyse the
minister’s claim and the data involved. Then once that initial analysis
was done, this analysis was then sent to another expert, with no name on
the document, for a secondary analysis to confirm or deny the first
expert’s findings.
The initial study was done by the University of Melbourne’s Peter Christoff and the review by Mike Sandiford, also at Melbourne University.
The verdict from Christoff ends with:
‘In conclusion, Minister Hunt’s suggestion that the carbon price
had little effect on the rate of emissions reduction seems to be
incorrect.’
Sandiford’s review of Christoff’s analysis begins:
‘The analysis appears to be supported by the data.’
Sandiford then adds:
‘In the two years of the carbon tax, emissions declined at 5%, some nine times faster than during the preceding five years.’
So it seems that minister Hunt was once again spreading incomplete, cherry-picked data to demonise the carbon tax.
Or to put it another way — lying.
But then things got really out of control with Hunt showing a divine lack of judgment, by taking on GetUp! through social media. I don’t know who advised the minister to do this (if anyone) but they really should have known better.
Here is a graphic showing the post Hunt put on his Facebook page:
In it, he says:
‘GetUp(sic) should get their facts straight on the reef’
He then goes on to lambast GetUp! (note the exclamation mark; Greg Hunt should learn how spell the name of those he’s attacking in my opinion).
There then follows a diatribe against the activist organisation
making all sorts of wild allegations of getting everything wrong.
In a vanishingly short space of time GetUp! responded with a detailed refutation of every single allegation made by Hunt.
You can make up your own mind from reading both documents, however what I found fascinating was the number counts.
As you can see at the bottom of Hunt’s post, he got paltry 536 likes
and 235 shares. There were 585 comments, I patrolled these with interest
and discovered that the bulk of them – something like four to one
– were supportive of GetUp! and vehemently anti-Greg Hunt.
Here are the first four comments that came up when I clicked the comments balloon on Wednesday 28 January, 2015:
However, if you really want to see some numbers, take a look at GetUp!’s rebuttal page:
GetUp! received 435 to 1 more likes than Greg Hunt, over 233k (and counting).
Final readout:
The carbon tax monetary figure is $15.4 billion, not $36 billion.
Australia’s greenhouse emissions fell approximately nine times faster when the carbon tax was in play.
GetUp! got their facts right on the Great Barrier Reef, Greg Hunt didn’t.
Thus we are left with a paraphrasing of an old aphorism: If you can’t say something nice about a person, say nothing at all.
So we ask Greg Hunt: If you can’t say anything truthful, then shut the $%&* up.
Some
politicians – Tony Abbott an expert among them – realise the importance
of dictating the terms of public discourse. That is, to get us talking
on issues they want us to talk about, which are usually to avoid the public engaging on issues that might actually
be important to them. A recent and telling example; the aforementioned
had large numbers of the voting public satisfied their family would be
$550 a year better off under a Coalition Government after the dastardly
‘carbon tax’ was repealed. You may recall it was never mentioned that
many of those same families would annually lose $1,400 with the
Coalition’s scrapping of the Schoolkids Bonus. The $550 saving was
mentioned by Tony Abbott how many times?
Tony Abbott had succeeded in getting people to focus on the unimportant, and he was successful for doing so.
He has now done it again, though not with any intent.
Every important issue his government needs to address; be it social,
economic or environmental has slipped off the public lip since Prince
Philip’s bizarre knighthood was announced. The widening gap of equality
in this country, and one for which the government was damned for, seems
to only be an issue of importance pre January 26.
Three days later we are not only still talking about Prince Philip’s
knighthood, but also the immediate fate of the man who bestowed the
knighthood upon him. These, naturally, make delicious talking points but
they are a deflection from what might appeal to us on voting day.
Namely, the messes this government has made (which I’m sure they’d be
happy not to have us mumble about them).
AIMN reader Colin thinks the same way. A friend commented to him:
“I’m
amazed at how quickly we as Australians jump on something so trivial,
yet we sit by silently on some of society’s biggest challenges with
nothing more than a whimper for fear of upsetting the perceived public
majority or being branded alternative, or even worse, a bigot! I
guess I’m just disillusioned with people and I think what we really
rate as important in life these days are those which cater to our
selfishness”.
Which leads me to the point of this article, Colin’s response, which he sent to The AIMN and has approved its publication:
I
agree that you have every right to feel disillusioned and I think many
Australians have been feeling the same way for a very long time.
However; for this issue not to be a political debate is a tall order,
because it is our Prime Minister who has opened this ridiculous can of
worms.
On
the surface it may appear to be “trivial”, and let’s be honest, how
many of us really care about knights and dames (an award discontinued by
the Hawke Labor Government) – I think that this is the very reason that
everyone is so pissed off – ‘knights and dames’ are simply not an
important or relevant national issue that should be high on the Prime
Minister’s to do list!
It
was a brazen Abbott that declared during the pre-election campaign that
he wanted “to be known as the Prime Minister who keeps commitments” and
who went on to pleadge “we will be a no-surprises, no-excuses
government, because you are sick of nasty surprises and lame excuses
from people that you have trusted with your future”. Yet since coming
into power the Coalition have surprised us by, for eample:
doubling
the deficit by changes to government spending and changes to government
assumptions. Blown the deficit out to $40.4 Billion by 15 December
2014.
providing us with the highest official jobless rate in more than a decade.
defunding
peak organisations that advocate for the poor and oppressed, including
Homelessness Australia, Financial Counselling Australia and National
Shelter.
abolishing ‘Medicare locals’, despite a promise to not cut the health budget.
breaking the election promise of no cuts to education by cutting funding for trade training centres in schools.
The
list of cuts and broken promises goes on, and on, and on (and despite
the regression of government services – the deficit just goes up, and
up, and up). Everybody should acquaint themselves with the list Sally McManus keeps of the wreckage and broken promises. It is worth a look.
As far as the list of broken promises and wreckage goes, you simply can’t make this stuff up. It contains documented, undeniable FACTS (just like the evidence of Climate Change).
But
‘credit’ where ‘credit’ is due – they have ‘stopped the boats’ of
course, however, at an enormous cost. The deaths of two young men (Reza
Berati 23yo and Hamid Kehazaei 24yo) plus scores more being physically
injured, the ongoing mental anguish suffered by men, women and children
at the hands of our ‘successful’ government. And how much are they
spending on all this?
Furthermore;
the serious and internationally damaging claims that laws have been
broken by the government while jeopardising the lives and safety of
asylum seekers. It is beyond human decency to treat people this way.
From separating a mother from her 4 day old baby; leaving a baby with a
defective pacemaker on Christmas Island for 2 months; refugees being
forced to queue up to 4 hours for toilets and food on Manus Island; and
claims of a cover-up of violent PNG police-army clash with refugees on
Manus Island. The shameful list is extensive. You can see a list of
these ‘shame files’ here.
Despite
the evidence that this appalling government is rotten to the core, and
has not even remotely delivered what it has promised; we have a Prime
Minister preoccupied with dragging the country back 30 years with
trivial matters such as knights and dames!
So
yes, the Australia Day announcement of a non-Aussie as our newest
knight may seem ‘trivial’ compared with the real issues we face,
however, when considered in full context with the current state of
affairs rolled out by the Liberals (and the ongoing bizarre and
patronising priorities of Abbott), then we all have every right to be
angry and concerned about this latest gaffe.
The alarm bells should be ringing loud and clear!
Before January 26 the alarm bells were ringing loud and clear. Tony Abbott made them stop. It’s time to ring them again.
In response to the Queensland Government’s crackdown on graffiti, where vandals will be given up to seven years jail,
Tony Abbott has announced that his government will be introducing
similar penalties for those caught doing electronic graffiti.
“We’ve just about had enough of people using things like
Facebook and Tweeter to undermine what should have been a happy occasion
for everyone. In future, anyone using social media for any other
purpose than to give straight factual information or post photos of
kittens will be subject to our new electronic graffiti laws!”
Yeah, you’re right. I’m making it up. Well, not the part about
Queensland – but there’s always been a few Northern politicians who’ve
had too much sun. The interesting thing, of course, is that some of you
probably took it seriously, or at least wondered. And, if you rang
around Liberal politicians and asked them about Tony’s proposal to ban
electronic graffiti, they’d probable feel obliged to check that it
wasn’t true before they made a comment.
But with the Government licking its wounds over its failure to push
legislation through the Senate, and it’s “Hey, why don’t we just ignore
the Senate and pass things through regulation” strategy in tatters, we
heard promises of a more consultative government. Of course, that didn’t
mean Tony Abbott. What the rest of the Liberals don’t seem to
understand is that he won the election. I mean, he was going to be Pope
at one stage, but then he discovered that then God would be in charge,
so he decided to become PM where he alone is able to determine policy.
Why did we introduce knights and dames? Well, Tony said so, and he’s
the supreme leader. Why did he give Phil a knighthood without consulting
anybody? Well, he consulted the other person getting one, and then he
asked the Queen if she’d like to give her husband a knighthood. “Oooh,
thanks,” said the Queen, “normally, I don’t get to give imperial honours
to members of my own family. It’s such a thrill, I haven’t been able to
get Phil to go down on his knees for me since the early ’80s! Thanks,
you wild colonial boy, you.”
Yes, I’m sure that there’ll be people out there saying that we
shouldn’t be concentrating on trivia like this. That there are important
issues. But surely the fact that PM feels like being elected gives him
a mandate to do what he likes, is one of the
important issues. This isn’t just about something that he’s sprung on
the electorate before the election; he’s even sprung it on his own
party. While some of you may be smirking at the poetic justice of that,
the fact remains we have a leader who makes the dictator from “Bananas”
look sane by comparison.
This is not just about a difference of political opinion. It’s hard
to see anyone – with the possible exception of David Flint who feels
that anything less than the deification of the Royal Family is to treat
them with disrespect – who actually thought that Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh needed Australia to remind his wife that the addition of an
antipodean knighthood would be a nice little post-Christmas present.
(David Flint, by the way, ran a Facebook group called “Direct Democracy”
which argued for the right of the people to call an election with
15,000 signatures as its raison d’etre. Strangely, it now argues against
global warming while telling us all what a great job Tony’s doing.)
All Abbott really needs now is for someone to ask him if Campbell
Newman is really so toxic that he doesn’t want to be seen campaigning
for a loser. If he says that it’s because it’s a state election and
therefore about state issues, then the obvious follow-up is “Why did you
campaign in Victoria then?”
I suspect we’d see a stare longer than when that reporter asked about the context for the “Shit happens” comment.
August 28 2013:
The Coalition has today promised $100 million in funding for the 15
Rural Research and Development Corporations specifically targeted at
increasing the profitability of Australian agriculture.
To date, it has failed to actually deliver one additional cent of new
money for R&D projects. The hastily contrived $20 billion slush
fund for pharmaceutical companies is dependent on the GP co-payment and
is a long way from providing any significant money to R&D should it
ever come to fruition which is doubtful.
On Thursday, Barnaby Joyce’s announcement that the Queensland grains
industry will receive $14.3 million over five years is another sign of
desperation by the Abbott Government to shore up votes in Queensland.
The reality is that the Abbott Government has slashed funding
$80 million from Cooperative Research Centres
$115 million from the CSIRO – the biggest job losses to the organisation in history
$11 million from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation
$7 million of R&D Commonwealth matching dollars cut from Rural
Research and Development Corporations announced in the May Budget.
Under Labor’s analysis, there is a total of $836.2 million in direct
cuts to research, led by cuts to the CSIRO and the Research Training
Scheme, and the abolition of Commercialisation Australia.
It says other savings will also hit research, including the 20 per
cent cut to undergraduate places in universities and a more than
half-billion-dollar cut to the student start-up loan scholarships
scheme.
Add to that $6 billion in combined cuts to higher education and preventative health programs.
The impact of lower funding is likely to slow or stop vital research
on infectious diseases such as the deadly Ebola virus. Other efforts
that will be affected are the fights against bowel or colorectal cancer,
which could stop completely. These had been under way at the CSIRO.
The CSIRO generated $37.5 million in licence fees and royalties last
financial year and $278.5 million in 2011-12, when royalties from a
wireless technology were significantly higher.
Inventions developed at CSIRO range from cotton seeds to contact
lenses, with much of the income returned to the organisation’s research
budget.
Much of the royalties
flowing in stem from research projects that began decades ago. Among
them is wireless technology, which has produced $420 million in the past
five years, and pest-resistant cotton seed varieties used in 95 per
cent of Australia’s cotton crops. Multinational partners include Bayer
and Monsanto as well as local partner Cotton Seed Distributors.
Royalties from the cotton seed varieties, developed to be disease and
pest-resistant, range between $10 million and $20 million a year.
”A lot of the commercial outcomes we are getting now are based on
investment we were able to make in the science using federal government
taxpayer money in the past,” Ms Bingley said. ”If we don’t have access
to that, then it makes it that much harder to innovate because it’s
difficult to get industry to pay for things so early on in development.”
She pointed to start-up companies that have emerged as a result of
CSIRO inventions, including GeoSLAM, a company commercialising an
advanced 3D laser-scanning device called Zebedee.
Chief executive of BioMelbourne Network, a Victorian industry
association for the biotech sector, Michelle Gallaher said much of
Australia’s success in the field was founded on CSIRO research. She said
the organisation grew not only technology but also talent.
It was also helping at least 50 Australian biotech companies to
develop and commercialise their research. ”Any kind of cuts to CSIRO
will translate to a lack of opportunity down the track,” she said.
Last August, Education Minister Christopher Pyne said university
research cuts could not be ruled out if Parliament continued to block
budget measures.
When having his photo taken at a cancer research facility so he could
claim his $560 allowance after attending a private function the
previous evening, Tony Abbott said
“We want to get our higher education changes through because they
will be good for universities, they will be good for research, they will
be good for Australia, but what we are doing is we are modestly
reducing government funding but at the same time we are liberating – we
are liberating – our universities to achieve what they can because if
there is one institution that ought to be capable of looking after its
own affairs it is a university, which is, by definition, a bastion of
our best and brightest.
But I want to stress here at the Peter Mac – this is a government
which is dedicated to science, which is devoted to research, and wants
to massively increase Australia’s research effort.”
It seems a convenient devotion to only be discussed during campaigns
and ignored during budgets, unless the sick, the unemployed, and our
kids are willing to fund it of course.
In Abu Dhabi, at a series of sessions at the World Future Energy Conference on
the future of global renewable energy investment and clean energy
markets, there was a lot of debate among some of the world’s leading
bankers and clean energy developers about which countries offered the
best opportunities.
“Australia is dead,” said Edgare Kerkwijk, the head of Singapore-based Asia Green Capital, to the general agreement of all.
Just how dead the market is has been highlighted by the fact that no
new projects have gotten financial commitment since the election of the
Abbott government in late 2013. In 2014, investment in large scale
renewables plunged 88 per cent, taking Australia from 11th ranking to
39th.
A new report from Green Energy Markets, looking at the last quarter
of 2014, notes that only one large scale project got new finance
approval in 2014 – the 70MW Moree solar farm, and that was mostly due to
the financing awarded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the
Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
We were asked to judge the Coalition by their actions rather than their words.
Nice try Barnaby, but your election sweetener to the grains industry
pales into insignificance in light of your short-sighted approach to
research, development, innovation and investment.
You want a country that has no debt….and no future.
If ever Tony Abbott had an opportunity to become
the infrastructure Prime Minister he boasted he wanted to be, right now
it is staring him in the face. Right now he could authorise a massive
capital spending program that would literally electrify the nation and
elevate it back to near full employment.
It could be an economic revival to exceed anything our country has
ever experienced. All it needs is leadership of the Whitlam and Chifley
kind. The sort we haven’t seen since the early 1970s.
As Peter Martin demonstrates in The Age
this morning, the money is there for the taking at an historic low
interest rate (2.55%), the projects are numerous, the workforce is
available, with resources able to be sourced locally and the prospect of
multiple auxiliary contracts being let out to small and medium sized
manufacturing plants.
What an opportunity! This is what visionary governments do. It is the
stuff that future generations would look back upon and say, “This is what I’m talkin’ about!” But where are those who could place their imprimatur on such an undertaking?
They
are counting pennies, robbing the elderly, depriving the sick,
forsaking proper educational opportunities for the young. They are
engaging in the regressive, conservative, miserly, backward thinking of
Dicken’s Ebenezer Scrooge; of bean counters intent on consolidating what
they think is a finite resource.
The Abbott government could become the most far-sighted in our
history. But they won’t. Neither Abbott nor anyone in his cabinet has
the foresight. His words are meaningless, his vision worthless, his
cabinet full of backward thinking, thought deprived, mediocrity.
While a score of major national projects sit expectantly on engineer’
and architects’ desks, begging to be commissioned, these so-called
leaders are all looking the other way.
The current 10 year target bond rate in Australia is higher at 2.5%
than practically anywhere else in the world. In the US it is 1.81%. In
Britain it is 1.54%, in Germany, 0.40%, in Japan, it is 0.24%. Investors
all over the world are looking for government bonds that offer a better
rate than that.
They have mountains of money to invest and would jump at the
opportunity to bring it down under. We have mountains of projects we
could kick-start. We have a serious unemployment problem destined to
become worse as our economy contracts.
We have an inflation rate of 2.3% which is certain to fall further
with the present slump in oil prices. The timing for a massive
infrastructure program is perfect. There is the Brisbane to Sydney to
Melbourne fast rail project, we could restore the NBN to its original
specifications; the Sydney WestConnex road project and Melbourne’s North
South Metro Rail tunnel are major infrastructure projects waiting to be
given the nod.
So where is the pretend infrastructure Prime Minister? He’s still
counting the repeal of the carbon tax as his greatest achievement.
Any
number of projects up to a combined cost of $100 billion whose benefits
exceed their cost could be undertaken, all of which could be financed
with government bonds locked in at 2.55% for 10 years. It is a golden
opportunity but with a limited window in which to take advantage. The
bond market is set for a correction sooner, rather than later.
But what chance is there that a government that rails against debt
and deficits, would grasp such an opportunity? What chance is there that
a government that is determined to strangle our economy as it tries to
produce worthless surpluses, could see the benefits that would result?
What chance is there that a government whose only plan was to stop
the boats, repeal the carbon and mining taxes and whose leader thinks
coal is good for humanity, would have the intellectual capacity to seize
their moment in history?
What chance? None.
Saul
Eastlake, economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch says, we could
speed up the commercial availability of battery technologies that could
power solar panels on our roofs and enable them to be removed from the
grid.
Where are the visionaries that could create such a project? Where are
the visionaries that have the potential to put half a million people
back to work, increase tax revenues accordingly, reduce welfare costs
and improve the overall health of the economy?
They would much rather have those overseas investment bodies own
those projects such that the wealth they produce would remain in the
hands of the 1%. The future prosperity of Australia could never be
realised while under the management of neo liberal thinking
conservatives whose leader thinks coal is good for humanity.
Not here. Not now. While The LNP are in power, the computer says no.
