ABC's preaching not based on fact
ANDREW BOLT
HERALD SUN
OCTOBER 23, 2013 11:30PM
5 COMMENTS

The ABC has claimed the NSW bushfires are linked to global warming and Prime Minister Tony Abbott's plan to scrap the carbon tax. Source: News Limited
THE Gillard Government died broke yet could still toss one last biscuit to its pet media outlet.

On its deathbed it gave the ABC an extra $10 million, mainly to create a - ho, ho - Fact Checking Unit.

Could the ABC damn well use it? Now, when almost every ABC current affairs program is exploiting the NSW fires in a fact-free jihad for the global warming faith?

Some of this preaching is simply clownish.

ABC's 7.30 starred an academic from the Monash Sustainability Institute who blamed global warming for confusing the kind of child arsonists accused of starting some of these fires: "You light it and in the circumstances that we've got at the moment with climate change it gets away when it probably wasn't meant to get away."

But mostly it's disgraceful. Wall to wall - on Lateline, AM, 7.30, The Drum, Q&A, Radio National Breakfast, The World Today - we get the ABC promoting two deceitful notions.


First, we're asked to believe these fires are linked to global warming and, second, that Prime Minister Tony Abbott's plan to scrap the carbon tax means we'll get more.

Yes, I can understand the ABC's desperation. As former ABC chairman Maurice Newman has said, "a small but powerful group has captured the corporation" on global warming and these poor zealots have seen nothing work out as their gurus prophesised.

The planet's atmosphere hasn't actually warmed by a statistically significant amount for 15 years. The great Australian drought that Greens leader Bob Brown warned could be "permanent" ended years ago.

The rains that professional alarmist Tim Flannery claimed weren't "actually going to fill our dams and our river systems" returned and did.

Result: the public's faith in the warming catastrophe melted so fast that Abbott won an election promising to scrap the carbon tax.

So when these NSW fires came, you could almost hear the cheers from the ABC canteens.

At last! A chance to flog the global warming scare. A chance to promote alarmists who presented these fires as not just serious, which they are, but so "unprecedented" that only man-made warming could explain them.

So let's do some of the fact-checking the ABC didn't.

Claim: NSW faced an "unprecedented fire disaster", reported Radio National Breakfast.

Fact: NSW suffered serious fires in 1951-52, 1968-69, 1984-85 and 1993-94. These latest fires have burned perhaps 100,000 hectares and killed one person, but the 1984-85 fires burned 3.5 million hectares and killed four.

Australia's biggest known bushfire, Victoria's "Black Thursday" disaster in 1851, burned five million hectares. Our deadliest, Black Saturday, killed 173 people.

Claim: "It's certainly the first time bushfires of this magnitude have happened in October," reported Lateline. Added Radio National's Fran Kelly: "We've always dealt with fire, but not necessarily in October."

Fact: In October 1928 the Sydney Morning Herald reported Sydney was "encircled by bushfires".

In October 1948, the Herald reported "the village of Termeil, 12 miles from Ulladulla, was practically destroyed" ...

In October 1951, 100 bushfires raged around Sydney in what the Herald described as "the worst in history". NSW has in fact had more than a dozen big fires in October or earlier in the past 90 years.

Claim: On AM, Christiana Figueres, a UN climate change bureaucrat, said - unchallenged - these fires were "introductions to the doom and gloom that we could be facing", adding: "We are really already paying the price of carbon ... with wildfires, we are paying the price with drought ..."

Fact: Global temperatures have been flat for 15 years and even the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conceded last month it had only "medium confidence that globally the length and frequency of warm spells, including heatwaves, has increased".

As for the "doom and gloom", the IPCC admitted it had "low confidence" that droughts, floods, winds or thunderstorms had actually got worse and there had even been "slight decreases in the frequency of tropical cyclones".

But behind all this hype is the biggest deceit of all - a delusion that the carbon tax could make a difference to future fires and Abbott will make fires worse by scrapping it.

In fact, Abbott still promises to cut our emissions.

But so what? Both Abbott's "direct action" scheme and Labor's carbon tax would at best cut the world's temperature this century by 0.0038 degrees, according to IPCC author Professor Roger Jones.

Does anyone believe this infinitesimally small change would spare us one fire?

Of course, the ABC did occasionally interview people with surer ways to save us.

Bushfire expert David Packham tried to tell 7.30 we had to burn our bush every 10 years to cut the leaf litter that turns our fires into infernos, a level of burning NSW doesn't come close to reaching.

But after just 69 words, 7.30 handed back his microphone to chatterers whose living depends on the warming scare - two green activists and a scientist from Climate System Science.

The ABC is not reporting but preaching.

So it has a Fact Checking Unit? Money back please.

http://m.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/abcs-preaching-not-based-on-fact/story-fnj45fvd-1226745593355

Commonwealth challenge to same-sex marriage laws hearing in High Court
Date
October 25, 2013
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Christopher Knaus and Lisa Cox
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Dr Susan Nicholls ... at the High Court for the Commonwealth's challenge against the ACT's same-sex marriage laws.
Same-sex marriage laws passed in ACT
Commonweath lodges High Court challenge
How do the gay marriage laws work?
The High Court could hear the Commonwealth's legal case against same-sex marriage before the first union takes place under the ACT's new laws.

The stoush over the ACT’s same-sex marriage laws, dubbed a ‘‘David and Goliath battle’’ by the territory, appeared in the High Court for the first time on Friday.


Deputy director of Marriage Equality Australia, Ivan Hinton, speaks to media outside the High Court of Australia after the marriage equality hearing. Photo: Rohan Thomson
The Commonwealth, as expected, pushed for the hearing to be scheduled as soon as possible, arguing it should occur before the end of the year.

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But the ACT Government said the proceedings should not be rushed in a way that would prejudice the parties.

High Court Chief Justice Robert French instead adjourned the directions hearing until early November, suggesting a hearing could be set down for the first week of December - or between Tuesday, December 3 and Friday, December 6.

It was suggested in court that the first marriages under the laws could take place from December 7. This would be the case if the ACT takes the full 10 days to gazette the law, meaning there is also a chance the law could take effect from the beginning of December if the legislation is processed quickly.

The High Court would not necessarily make a ruling at the conclusion of the hearing, and could reserve its judgement.

Justice French asked the ACT to file a defence by early November, with the court expected to sit again for directions on November 4.

The key constitutional issue is expected to be whether the ACT’s Marriage Equality Same-Sex Bill is inconsistent with the federal Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, or the Family Law Act, which deals with issues like divorce.

If the laws are inconsistent, they are likely to be deemed unconstitutional and declared invalid.

The Commonwealth launched its constitutional challenge on Wednesday, just one day after the bill was passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly.

The ACT is attempting to create a distinct and separate type of marriage, that can sit alongside the federal marriage laws.

Both Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis called on same-sex couples to hold off marrying until the High Court battle is resolved.

If the ACT’s laws were overturned, all same-sex marriages would be declared invalid, which Mr Brandis said would cause ‘‘distress’’ to some couples.

The ACT Government was forced to make last-minute changes to the laws on Tuesday to strengthen its chance of a win in the High Court.

Originally, the government had attempted to allow anyone who was not covered by federal laws to marry.

That was quickly changed after legal advice warned that approach could fail.

Instead, the ACT has sought to create a special form of same-sex marriage, which does not interfere with the Commonwealth’s laws.

Even more amendments could be made to the bill to bolster its chances of surviving the challenge.

The ACT Government is meeting key stakeholders and constitutional law experts on Monday to consider further changes.

The wording of the bill has prompted some criticism from same-sex campaigners, who fear that the ACT has rushed the legislation as a ‘‘protest’’, rather than a genuine attempt at achieving change.

They fear that if the ACT fails in the High Court, it could mean a major setback for the gay rights movement’s push for marriage equality.

But ACT Treasurer Andrew Barr told ABC Radio on Friday morning that, should it lose, the government could simply introduce a new bill, which may be based on the guidance from the High Court.

There were concerns the Commonwealth might have sought an injunction on Friday, which would have prevented couples from marrying until the High Court case was finalised. No such order was sought.

Other groups, including gay rights campaigners and opponents to same-sex marriage, did not seek to join the proceedings on Friday.

Those groups may still attempt to join the case as interested parties in the near future.



Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/commonwealth-challenge-to-samesex-marriage-laws-hearing-in-high-court-20131025-2w6en.html#ixzz2ioae5hSz