A small puzzle within the history of Christopher Pearson and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott

I mourn the passing of Christopher Pearson.
Christopher was one of our country's finest conservative intellects. He was also a steadfast friend.
I valued Christopher's counsel and his wisdom.
I suspect he never fully appreciated the impact he had on others and the sense of gratitude we have for him.
Australia will miss him.

[Tony Abbott, 9 June 2013]

Sometimes trawling though the Internet archives one comes across intriguing puzzles.

This one concerns Christopher James Pearson, writer, newspaper columnist, speech writer for former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and current Prime Minister Tony Abbott, as well as editor of three of Mr. Abbott’s books The Minimal ­Monarchy, How to Win the ­Constitutional War and Battlelines - who died on 7 June 2013 and whose probate details appear in CHRISTOPHER JAMES PEARSON [2014] SASC 77 (19 June 2014).

In his first will dated 1 May 1996 he made a specific disposition of his shares in The Adelaide Review Pty Ltd and his units in The Adelaide Review Unit Trust to his friend, Anthony John Abbott. The residue of the estate is to be divided in equal parts between the deceased’s mother and Mr Jones and, if either of those persons predecease the deceased, their share is to pass to the survivor. If both predecease the deceased, the residue is to pass to Mr Abbott.

The value of the estate was estimated to be $300,000 and included a small but impressive antiques collection comprising quality Georgian mahogany furniture, Artworks including a rare Cressida Campbell woodblock painting, a good selection of Hester Bateman sterling silver, important colonial cedar furniture, and many fine and rare books of Australian interest.

On 13 May 2008 Mr. Pearson made another will. His mother had died and the aforementioned shares/units had been previously sold, so could not be included. However, Mr. Pearson went one step further than removing a specific bequest – he removed Anthony John Abbott from the will entirely.

The beneficiaries of the will were changed to Jack Snelling and Aaron Russell.

One has to wonder what Mr. Abbott thought of this rather novel way of losing out to his political opposition.

I do wish journalists would look at methodology before quoting surveys

The Sydney Morning Herald on 29 October 2014 published an article containing this statement:

The level of trust in the Abbott government has soared in three months as public attention shifts from the budget to a heightened sense of nationalism in the context of national security, a new survey indicates. 

In the middle of the year only 26 per cent of people thought the federal government could be trusted to do the right thing for the Australian people.

At the end of October the figure had climbed to 36 per cent - the highest level of trust in the federal government recorded since 2009 by the Mapping Social Cohesion survey. 

What the journalist failed to note about this survey was that:

The target for the project was to achieve n=1000 completed questionnaire with respondents aged 18 and over, who were born in Australia and whose parents were both born in Australia.

Now the 2011 national census revealed that almost a quarter (24.6 per cent) of Australia's estimated population of 21.5 million people were born overseas, 43.1 per cent of the population (or 9.2 million people) had at least one overseas-born parent and 15 per cent did not have citizenship. Approximately 84.5 per cent of the population at that time would have been 18 years of age and over.

What this indicates is that the Mapping Social Cohesion survey did not include the possibility of canvassing the opinions of large section of the Australian community.

Even living in regional New South Wales as I do, it would exclude a good many voters in the town in which I live.

All of which changes the weight readers might have given to this newspaper article if they had realized the demographic limitations it contained.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott forgot that science is evidence-based

With science removed from its ministerial portfolio list, the dismantling of a number of science-based advisory bodies, savage cuts to science funding and climate change denialism rampant in its ranks – surely the Abbott Government must have expected this when it had the gall to hand out the Prime Minister’s Prizes For Science as though science mattered to this federal government.

http://youtu.be/N_EoFJwjEXk

The Guardian 30 October 2014:

Tony Abbott received a frosty response from scientists after he called on them to lobby Labor and Greens MPs to support the government’s plan for a medical research fund.

Abbott, speaking at the prime minister’s science awards in Canberra on Wednesday night, reiterated a message from his speech at last year’s awards when he said the government should be judged “not by its titles but by its performance”.

“I hope our performance has at least passed muster over the past 12 months,” the prime minister said, to a smattering of applause at the Parliament House awards ceremony.

“That was desultory applause, but at least it was some,” Abbott said, in response to the tepid response from the assembled scientists….

This exchange has been carefully omitted from the official transcript of Abbott’s speech which can be found here.

This is not the first time scientists attending these awards have signalled their dissatisfaction by failing to bring their hands together in unison en masse.

After last year’s prize giving The Guardian noted on 31 October 2013:

“It’s been remarked upon that we don’t have a minister for science as such in the new government and I know that there are people in the room who may have been momentarily dismayed by that,” Abbott said.

“But let me tell you that the United States does not have a secretary for science and no nation on Earth has been as successful and innovative as the United States. I’d say to all of you please, judge us by our performance, not by our titles.”

Abbott’s speech, which drew a smattering of applause from the audience, provoked a mixed reaction.

Congratulations, commiserations and condolences

The lads at the table of knowledge at the local watering hole were in all sorts of moods this afternoon. Some were over the moon that galloper Protectionist won the big event while others were terribly upset about the tragic demise of the race favourite.

To lighten the mood, Eric produced a copy of today's Examiner.

Eric, who's just a little bit longer in the tooth than other table members, had a real decent cackle about the typo in the Backward Glances column in today's DEX (see below). Eric  recalls his wife attending the 'elite" deportment school course but is adamant there was never any mention of young, or for that matter, any wine being part of the show.

Eric is now asking a lot of questions.

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