Right-wing attacks on the ABC continue. This time Gerard Henderson's tilt at Media Watch & Professor Chapman backfires spectacularly

Weighed under by budget cuts and loss of an international platform the Australian Broadcasting Commission, everybody's Aunty, must wonder when Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's flying monkeys will cease their attacks on its integrity.

Fortunately some of those who become collateral damage in the war on public broadcasting bite back publicly, as did Simon Fenton Chapman AO BA(Hons) (UNSW), PhD (USyd), FASSA, HonFFPH (UK).

Professor Chapman in Crikey on 23 February 2015:

Over the weekend and this morning, The Australian's Gerard Henderson and Simon King spent a lot of ink explaining to readers that I have "as much authority to discuss health affairs as I [Henderson] do. Namely, Zip."

Their readers needed to be told this because last week Media Watch tipped a very rancorous bucket over The Australian's reportage of a "study" from Victoria by acoustic engineer Steven Cooper that involved just three households of altogether six long-time complainants about the local wind farm. There was no control group. Here and here are critiques of the many manifest inadequacies of his report.

I was one of four people quoted by Media Watch in the program, and this got our Gerard very excited. He wrote to the program:

"Media Watch's decision to associate Professor Chapman with the words 'expert' and 'scientific' gave a clear impression that he is qualified to assess scientific research. However, Paul Barry neglected to advise Media Watch viewers that Simon Chapman had no scientific or engineering or medical qualifications. He has a BA (Hons) from the University of New South Wales and a Ph.D. from Sydney University. Dr Chapman's Ph.D. is in Sociology. In other words, Simon Chapman has no qualifications to assess the research of the acoustic engineer Steven Cooper … Media Watch misled its viewers last Monday by implying that Professor Simon Chapman is an 'expert' who is 'scientifically' qualified to assess the heath effect on humans of wind farms. The fact is that Simon Chapman has no formal qualifications in science or medicine or engineering."

This morning Simon King went one better with his discovery that ""He does not have a PhD in Medicine". In fact, I do have a PhD in medicine. Here's a list of 14 of us who graduated in 1986 with … wait for it … a "PhD in medicine", as King could have read if he'd checked my CV (line 1, page 3) or asked me.

I did my PhD in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine (that M word again). The duffers on the Order of Australia committee also seem to know that I contribute to health and medical research. My citation reads "for distinguished service to medical research as an academic and author".

King and Henderson appear to know nothing about the nature of contemporary expertise and how nearly all complex problems in health and medicine today involve researchers from different disciplines working together. In my school in the faculty of medicine there are staff who are biostatisticians, historians, psychologists, ethicists, economists, epidemiologists, and social scientists. Only some — probably a minority — have undergraduate degrees in medicine. Henderson's primitive understanding of expertise begins and ends with the possession of an undergraduate degree…..

Steven Cooper, whose CV has no mention of any PhD or undergraduate degree in medicine, until recently referred to himself as "Dr Cooper" on his home page. I look forward to The Australian covering this…..

Read the rest of the article here.

Santos' Gladstone LNG expansion proposal involves significant scientific uncertainties according to Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee

The industrialisation of rural and regional landscapes continue with Santos planning more than 6,000 water hungry gas wells operating for an estimated 30 years across 10,676 square kilometres in Queensland.

The Abbott Government has been in possession of the Independent Expert Scientific Committee’s final report on the Gas Fields Development Project since December 2014, sometime after which it was made publicly available on the Committee’s website.

ABC News 19 February 2015:

Top experts are warning of significant scientific uncertainties arising from a massive coal seam gas expansion proposal in Queensland.

The ABC has obtained a report from the Federal Government's Independent Expert Scientific Committee, which flags a concerning lack of information in project documents and says more work needs to be done on Santos's Gladstone LNG expansion proposal.

The proposed expansion covers 10,676 square kilometres and has the potential to include more than 6,000 gas wells across central Queensland.

"The scale, the early stage and the geographic extent of the proposed project development, together with other significant coal seam gas projects in the region, creates considerable scientific uncertainty about impacts on surface water and groundwater and associated ecosystems," the IESC report said.

According to the report, the potential impacts include:

* Reduced water supply to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems, including Great Artesian Basin discharge and watercourse springs and endangered ecological communities.

* Changes to groundwater and surface water quality due to direct project activities and management of co-produced water.

* Cumulative impacts of Surat and Bowen basin activities (particularly coal seam gas and coal mining) on groundwater pressures and lag-time effects on water.

The IESC also warned the hydroecological information (including ecological water requirements of systems) was "inadequate" for understanding potential local ecological impacts.

"Methods applied are appropriate to understand regional impacts, particularly cumulative water drawdown," the Committee said.

"However, the methods used are not sufficient for understanding local-scale impacts, particularly to ecological assets.

"Recognising the considerable information provided in the project assessment documentation, the IESC is concerned that relevant data and information from investigations and monitoring from the [Gladstone LNG] Project and Joint Industry Programmes have not been incorporated in the project assessment documentation for [this latest] development."

There is also the matter of weather during cyclone season......

This is the Santos facility at Curtis Island, Gladstone QLD:

Then there is the matter of weather conditions during cyclone season.....

On 19 February 2015 7News reported:

Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) spokesman Patrick Quirk said ships would be moved away from Gladstone Harbour this morning as a precaution. "We have about 11 ships in the port and 23 ships at anchor and they'll be asked to clear the area," he said. "We have some LNG tankers also in the area and they'll go to sea to weather the storm."

The Financial Review on 20 February 2015:

Ports in Mackay and Gladstone had been shut down in preparation for the cyclone. Gas company Santos said all of its staff on its GLNG liquefied natural gas project had been moved off Curtis Island, near Gladstone, with workers moved into cyclone-proof accommodation. Bechtel, which has built the three gas processing plants on Curtis Island, said the projects would remain closed until the weather improved.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part Two

Alan Moir political cartoon

From time to time snippets of truth concerning Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s expensive war on terror appear in the media. 

This is another example.......

News.com.au 21 February 2015:

TONY Abbott suggested a unilateral invasion of Iraq, with 3500 Australian ground troops to confront the Islamic State terrorist group.

Flanked by his chief of staff, Peta Credlin, in a meeting in Canberra on November 25, the Prime Minister said the move would help halt the surge of Islamic State in northern Iraq.

After receiving no resistance from Ms Credlin or his other staff in the room, Mr Abbott then raised the idea with Australia’s leading military planners. The military officials were stunned, telling Mr Abbott that sending 3500 Australian soldiers without any US or NATO cover would be disastrous for the Australians.

They argued that even the US was not prepared to put ground troops into Iraq and it would make Australia the only Western country with troops on the ground…..

The Iraq idea was not the first time Mr Abbott had suggested a military intervention by Australia’s armed forces. The Australian reported in August that in the week following the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine by Russian-backed militia, Mr Abbott suggested sending 1000 Australian soldiers to secure the site of the crash….

Australia’s leading military planners also argued against that proposal, telling Mr Abbott there were serious problems with the plan: Australian soldiers would not be able to speak either Ukrainian or Russian, and the Australian troops would have difficulty distinguishing between Ukrainians and Russian militia.

The truth about Tony Abbott's war on terror? Part One

Note: Mr. Abbott has since denied  that he had raised the idea of Australia unilaterally intervening in Iraq. This denial appears to hinge on whether he had made a 'formal' request for advice on this matter - presumably as opposed to any informal discussion. However, since Mr. Abbott is a self-admitted purveyor of untruths it will be up to the reader to decide if he denial is believeable.

The Daily Examiner makes unforgivable factual error

The myriad of typos over the years one can laugh at – after all who doesn’t suffer from fat thumb from time to time.

However, errors of fact are a different matter.

In both its print and online version of the newspaper The Daily Examiner asserted this on 24 February 2015:

[my bolding]

This is sloppy reporting at best and at worst a deliberate distortion of fact. Quite frankly I’m hoping is was some off-site subbing which caused this blunder.

It was only two days before that The Daily Telegraph, not known to favour Labor, reported:

The indexation change was announced in the May budget. Welfare groups and Labor argue it will cut pensions by $80 a week within 10 years. According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, this amounts to a $23 billion cut to the cost of the age pension by 2023. [my red bolding]

A leading seniors advocate COTA Australia issued a media release on 21 August 2014 which stated:

“If only the CPI had been used since 2009 the Pension would already be $30 per week or $1,560 per year less, and that gap grows to over $80 per week / $4,160 per year in 10 years, and keeps growing. That’s a huge amount for Pensioners who already often have to make choices between heating, decent food, medications and a basic gift for their grandchild’s birthday. “This measure is extremely harsh and goes beyond even that which was recommended by the Commission of Audit….” [my red bolding]

On 22 May 2014 The Guardian reported:

The report, A Budget that Divides a Nation, says pensioners on aged and disability support payments would lose about $80 a week by 2024 after having their payments indexed to CPI. [my red bolding]

The Daily Examiner is telling its readers that pensioners will only lose $8 dollars a year when in fact the change in indexation reduces the value of the aged pension by an est. $416 in 2017 when the change come into effect and, this increases to an est. $4,160 per year by 2025.