Freedom of Information Update

9 December, 2012 by

FOI update

Lewandowsky – Universtiy of Western Australia

Graham Readfearn complains at DeSmogBlog that climate bloggers including myself are:

“using FOI to rifle through scientists’ daily emails.

…

[FOI] is a law which appears to have been hijacked by climate science sceptics and free market think tanks as a means to rifle through their inboxes in search of anything which, when taken out of context, might be used to make them look bad.”

…

This has resulted in a release this week of more than 300 pages of correspondence, although the applicant, “Australian Climate Madness” blogger Simon Turnill, has yet to publish the files. Lewandowsky said:

“There will have been easily more than 100 person hours of publicly-funded time spent dealing with this request, which cost the applicant only $30 to submit – although I understand there was an charge of $400. Putting in FOI requests seems to be common practice now. There is no question in my mind that the intent is to intimidate and slow down research. These kinds of requests discourage scientists from doing their work.”

Yes, it cost me over $400, and like anyone else I am fully entitled to apply for documents under the Freedom of Information Act without having to give any justification, because I was curious to see how such a piece of research was ever agreed to by University of WA’s ethics department.

And no, the intention was never to “intimidate and slow down research”, it is to subject academics who vilify sceptics to proper scrutiny. I have only ever submitted FOI requests when a highly questionable claim is made in the mainstream media, as was the case here, namely that sceptics believed the moon landings were faked. In total, I have submitted just four FOI requests in two and a half years on just two news stories – hardly what can be regarded as vexatious.

Lewandowsky obviously forgets that our taxes (including mine) pay his salary. When he uses his publicly funded position to launch highly politicised attacks on those he disagrees with, thinly disguised as academic research, then there are likely to be people who find that offensive.

As to why the documents have not been published, it is because there are a number of key emails between Professor Lewandowsky and a significant third party which have been withheld because of the third party’s objection. I am awaiting the release of those documents in due course, following which I will be commenting further on them.

As an aside, I must mention that the FOI department at the University of Western Australia has been exemplary in its handling of this matter.

Death threats – Melbourne University

Readfearn correctly states that I recently received emails under an FOI from Melbourne University. Once again, the “non-death threats” story made the mainstream media throughout the world. It is entirely proper for such claims to be backed up by documentary evidence. Emails received from the ANU showed that whilst there was abuse, there were no death threats. In other words, the FOI was justified in providing a proper background to the story which the mainstream media failed to provide.

As with the UWA, I must give Melbourne University credit for the professional manner in which the request was dealt with. Both it and the University of Western Australia are in stark contrast to the handling of the FOI request by ANU, which was initially refused, forcing me to appeal to the Information Commissioner.

I am still working on these, but guess what? The worst I can find is: “Die you lying bastard”. Unpleasant and distressing? Certainly. A death threat? Certainly not.

More importantly, however, one of the scientists involved, a prominent name in climate circles, even admits that the timing of the death threats story was a “media beat up”, and that there was no evidence of a “conspiracy” by sceptics to intimidate climate scientists.

What do you make of that, Graham?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Last words on ANU FOI

16 June, 2012 by

FOI request

ANU have stifled any further attempt to reach the truth in this matter, having (a) refused to comment any further through their media office; and (b) quoted nearly $40k to search through their documents for the further evidence I have requested – a ridiculous amount clearly intended to thwart my request.

You’d think they’d have a big red file labelled “Death Threats” on a shelf somewhere, but apparently not. The threats were so serious (allegedly) that they kept no easily accessible records and will need to spend over 2500 man hours trawling through all their documents. Bizarre.

This signals the end of the line. I could appeal the quoted fee, but to be honest, I don’t have the inclination to pursue the matter any further.

Chris Merritt pens the final summary in The Australian:

ATTEMPTS to verify last year’s sensational reports of death threats against climate change scientists have been stymied by the Australian National University, which wants to be paid at least $37,800 to search its records for evidence that would support those reports.

The university has justified that fee by asserting that the search would take 2520 hours and occupy six employees for 60 days working seven-hours a day at $15 an hour.

ANU has also given notice that the final bill could be even higher as it would need to include an additional sum to cover the cost of deciding whether to make available the results of the search. Before it starts looking, the university wants a deposit of $9450.

The money demanded by ANU has forced lawyer and climate change blogger Simon Turnill to abandon his latest attempt to check the veracity of the assertions.

“I don’t know how they have arrived at this figure of over 2500 hours of work to identify these documents,” Mr Turnill said.

“The simplest option would be for ANU to come out and admit honestly what was received and what was not received. Making us go through an endless succession of hoops to get to the truth seems a very defensive and strange response.”

As part of his FOI application, Mr Turnill had also sought access to all documents and records containing communications with journalists — particularly those at The Canberra Times — about threats to staff at the university’s Climate Change Institute. (source)

Chris also writes here about the police reports of threats sent to them in 2006, years prior to the story breaking last June, and how statements from the ANU staff concerned, which would have allowed police to investigate further, were never received. The description of the letters provided by police does not tie in with the description supplied by the ANU in its statement.

So I guess we will never know the truth. People will inevitably draw their own conclusions from the evasive manner in which ANU have handled this entire episode, which has done little for openness, honesty and ultimately the credibility of the institution.

Sharing information, whether it be climate data or evidence to back up claims of death threats, seems to be very difficult for our climate scientists.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

If you emotionalise the climate debate, expect scrutiny

15 June, 2012 by

And if you make exaggerated claims about AGW, expect scrutiny of those as well.

I really didn’t want to spoil my breakfast by reading anything from extremist Clive Hamilton, but I had little choice, as it refers to the ANU email story.

Regular readers will know Hamilton has made many dangerous global warming statements in the past, including suggesting the “suspension of democracy” to tackle the climate “crisis”, so it’s no surprise what comes next.

I’m not going to bother quoting anything from it, you can read it yourself here, but suffice it to say, Hamilton fails to acknowledge that there were no death threats received by the ANU, criticises The Australian for its reporting (naturally, this is the Murdoch hate media after all), and sneakily conflates the ANU story with some far more serious emails received by Phil Jones at UEA in the couple of months after the Climategate scandal broke.

[But was anyone ever charged with a criminal offence over these emails? Yes, they are deeply offensive and unpleasant, but, again, do they contain specific enough threats to kill that charges could be brought? I very much doubt it.]

In society there will always be a tiny minority of disturbed individuals who will send such material to high profile public figures, especially when they are front and centre of the news. I’ve said it a thousand times before, but will say it again: no conduct of this kind is acceptable in any circumstances and ACM condemns it unreservedly. 

However, when climate scientists themselves use the media to emotionalise the debate, to garner sympathy for their cause and implicitly portray anyone who questions the consensus as capable of such actions in an attempt to tar all climate realists with the same brush, they should expect detailed scrutiny of those claims. It’s all a meaningless distraction from the real issue anyway.

In Hamilton’s view, like with the climate debate itself, we, the ignorant unwashed masses, are not permitted to question the infallible authority of the climate elite, whether it is about man’s effect on the climate or receiving death threats. When some impudent upstart dares to do so, that is immediately branded “hate speech” by the “denier media”.

Sorry to be so childish about this, but really, who started this in the first place?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

ABC finally corrects 2011 ANU death threat story

5 June, 2012 by

FOI request

UPDATE: Marc has written to the ABC requesting they amend the sloppy and partisan wording of this update. We’ll see how far he gets…

Thanks to Marc Hendrickx for this update, which now appears on the original 4 June 2011 story. It still however refers to “climate sceptics” as if the only reason they were forced to issue the correction was because of evil deniers, rather than the fact that the story was incorrect:

UPDATE (June 4 2012):  Following  the release  of specific emails under Freedom of Information request, climate change sceptics have claimed that the released emails contradict suggestions that any death threats were received, but a spokesperson for the ANU says the university is standing by its claims that death threats were received. Questions have also been raised about whether one of the released emails did, in fact, constitute a threat to use a gun, with a person involved in the kangaroo culling program claiming the comments were made by him, and were in no way intended as a threat. The specific emails released under FOI were found by the Privacy Commissioner to contain abuse, but not overt threats.

Note the ANU still claims “death threats” were received – I’m still waiting for the ANU to provide them.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Media's double standards on threats

2 June, 2012 by

Chris Merritt writes about the threats endured by those on the other side of the climate debate and politics in general, which, naturally, are rarely reported or mentioned by our PC media, whose self-appointed job is to defend the climate consensus:

At the moment, climate change is one of the “hot button” issues that brings out the crazies. But it’s not just climate change.

Melbourne columnist Andrew Bolt has also had threats of physical violence for criticising Islamism and Anita Heiss’s book Am I Black Enough for You?.

He has even been threatened for opposing a national day of mourning for the Black Saturday bushfires.

Bolt puts it down to the morally superior manner of those who play a leading role in setting the tone of public policy debate.

The most startling incident occurred a decade ago when an activist organisation published his home address on its website “along with an exhortation to burn the house down”.

Two weeks ago a filmmaker, whom he named, used Twitter to urge his followers: “Let’s assassinate Andrew Bolt.” It was later removed.

A Greens candidate at the last federal election used Twitter to publish this: “Andrew Bolt is a vile c … of a man. I openly condone hunting him down and beating him to within an inch of his life.” (source)

But hey, Bolt’s fair game right? In the politically correct, groupthink world of ABC and Fairfax, Bolt is the very embodiment of the antichrist. What’s wrong with saying he should be done in?

Comments from the consensus side about their desired treatment of sceptics is of course all waved through without protests, such as these examples:

And conservative journalists are subjected to much the same abuse and threats as the climate scientists for daring to question shoddy and politicised science, or for having the temerity to question why we should be spending billions on a carbon tax which will do nothing for the climate, but we rarely hear anything about that.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Media Watch's Holmes on The Drum

31 May, 2012 by

Jonathan Holmes

Jonathan Holmes, presenter of Media Watch, writes a lengthy defence of his team’s reporting of the ANU death threats story on ABC’s The Drum. You can read it here.

The only point I am going to comment on is detail is the following claim:

In any case – and this is a factor which The Australian keeps dodging around, although it is crucial – the 11 emails were in fact irrelevant to the ANU scientists being moved to more secure offices, because that had happened 16 months earlier, in February 2010.

The Canberra Times’s Rosslyn Beeby no doubt knew this, but did not make it clear in her report. The ABC and the AAP don’t seem to have taken it aboard, and certainly didn’t report it back in June 2011. Simon Turnill didn’t understand it when he put in his FOI request.

Well actually, it’s nothing to do with understanding – Beeby didn’t make it clear, as Holmes states, if indeed she did “no doubt” know it. In any event, my FOI request was based on the ABC’s reporting of this event, which says:

Several of Australia’s top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security.

Several of the scientists in Canberra have been moved to a more secure location after receiving the threats over their research.

Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young says the scientists have received large numbers of emails, including death threats and abusive phone calls, threatening to attack the academics in the street if they continue their research.

He says it has been happening for the past six months and the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks.

I cannot see any way of construing the above to mean anything other than the following: death threats have been received at ANU in the last six months and we’ve moved staff as a result.

Holmes then quotes a number of emails, none of which contain “death threats”, but simply confirm the unfortunate truth that scientists (along with many others public figures) receive abusive emails from a tiny minority of disturbed individuals. This fact should not have been used as a way to tar all critics of the climate consensus as being a bunch of dangerously unhinged lunatics who would resort to sending death threats to climate scientists because they disagree with what they are saying (the inference – intended or unintended – from the Canberra Times and ABC reporting).

Holmes ends thus:

Who you believe on this matter – The Australian, or Media Watch – should have nothing at all to do with whether or not you accept what the vast majority of qualified scientists are telling us about climate change. 

Science by consensus again. And still the ANU haven’t produced evidence of any death threats to any staff at any time. They are welcome to do so whenever they like and then we’d all be happy to see an end to this farce.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

The Australian roasts Media Watch – again

30 May, 2012 by

Media Watch

Your humble correspondent gets another mention in an editorial in The Australian today:

IT’S no surprise that the ABC’s Media Watch has no bite when it comes to scrutinising the national broadcaster’s own news coverage. On Monday night it lost its bark as well. Host Jonathan Holmes fell silent over an issue that he bungled badly the week before — the ABC’s erroneous report in June last year that: “Several of Australia’s top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security.”

The sensationalised story, which followed up a report in The Canberra Times, gained such wide airplay on radio, on television and online that it was picked up internationally by The Guardian and the scientific journal Nature, fuelling a perception that climate sceptics are dangerous fanatics.

The problem was that a crucial element of the story was wrong, which the ABC now concedes — sort of — in a “clarification” buried deep on its website.

…

But, curiously, most of [Holmes’] wrath was directed at The Australian — for factual news stories that revealed that FOI requests by climate change blogger Simon Turnill had uncovered 11 emails at odds with last year’s ABC report. 

Read the rest here.

And, no, there is still no response from ANU to my questions seeking clarification regarding their claim (in the ABC correction) that they did receive death threats, but just not within the scope of the original FoI…

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Chubb on ANU: 'no death threats except when journalists picked up the story'

29 May, 2012 by

FOI request

The death threat saga has reached parliament, with questions being asked at a Senate Estimates Committee of Prof Ian Chubb, current Chief Scientist, but Vice Chancellor of the ANU until March 2011. Most amazingly, Chubb confirms there were no death threats until the journalists got hold of the story!

The Australian reports that Liberal senator Scott Ryan questioned Chubb, who responded that, in 2010:

A senior member of his staff came to him with concerns from the institution’s climate scientists over emails they had received and said they had also had “a couple of visits from people who had walked in off the street”.

The staff member expressed a desire to have the climate scientists moved from their then-location, Professor Chubb said. “We looked at what we could do and we moved them. Senator, we did not make a fanfare, we did not go public. We simply moved them and got on with our business,” 

Basically they were given swipe card access. So does this incident refer to the “kangaroo cull” incident, or another? He goes on to confirm he never read the emails:

“They were at least abusive but let me be clear . . . I didn’t read the emails. I trusted the man who came to me, he was a senior member of the staff and he represented concerns of the staff to me,” Professor Chubb said.

Yes, it has been accepted all along that the emails were offensive. However, Chubb saves the best until last:

“For the record, there were no alleged death threats except when journalists picked up the story.”

So is this a media beat up? Can we now assume that this means that during Chubb’s watch as Vice Chancellor, which ended in March 2011 with the appointment of Ian Young, there were no death threats to climate scientists at ANU? If so, why are the ANU still insisting, through the ABC correction, that they did, in fact, receive such threats?

The window during which such threats must have been received is closing rapidly, and is now restricted to the period March – June 2011. I am still awaiting a response to the questions I sent to the ANU’s media office on Friday, seeking clarification.

Time, I think, for the ANU to finally come clean on this mess.

Full Australian article here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

ANU death threats: ABC's groupthink on climate

26 May, 2012 by

FOI request

The Australian publishes no less than four separate articles dealing, either directly or tangentially, with the ANU death threat story, and focussing in particular on the ABC’s response to the release of the emails.

Interestingly, the ABC’s response to the release of the emails has become more the focus of these reports, since it exposes the blinkered mentality on climate change which afflicts our national (taxpayer-funded) broadcaster.

On page 5, Chris Merritt writes an article entitled “ABC issues correction on ANU scientists email threats claim” quoting ACM’s editor:

THE ABC has issued a correction acknowledging that 11 emails sent to climate scientists at the Australian National University contained abuse, but no death threats.

The correction, posted on the ABC’s website late on Thursday, follows criticism from The Australian and ABC TV’s Media Watch.

It comes three weeks after The Australian reported that Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim had examined the emails and found no death threats, while adjudicating on an attempt to obtain their release from the ANU under the Freedom of Information Act.

That FOI request had been submitted by lawyer and blogger Simon Turnill, who was seeking to check the veracity of the ABC’s report of June 4 last year that in the previous six months “several of Australia’s top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security”.

The correction indicates that the ABC now accepts its report about Mr Pilgrim’s decision on May 11 should have said the emails contained no death threats, rather than just saying they contained abuse.

But the ABC has not disavowed last year’s reports about death threats. It says the ANU believes its staff did receive death threats, but they did not come to light in the FOI exercise.

In response, Mr Turnill wrote to ANU asking it to make public whatever evidence it has about death threats.

He drew its attention to the ABC’s statement in the correction that “the ANU maintains that staff have received death threats in other communications not released under the FOI action”.

He asked the university when such death threats were received, who received them, what form they took, whether the university referred them to police and what evidence it held about the existence of death threats. He wrote this information was covered by the terms of a second FOI request he served on the university.

“However, I would respectfully suggest that given the significant media interest in this story the university consider releasing the evidence of those death threats which it holds without the need for another protracted FOI procedure,” Mr Turnill wrote. (source)

In case you wondered, the ANU haven’t yet responded to the email I sent yesterday, and I fully expect them to refuse to release the documents. One must ask why they are so reluctant to put an end to the speculation, that some particularly cynical readers may be engaging in, that maybe there aren’t any death threats at all, or for some strange reason the ANU spectacularly failed to keep proper records of something as serious as a death threat? As our American cousins would say, just release the documents already!

The lead story on Inquirer is entitled “Groupthink takes over at national broadcaster”

NOW and then, if you watch and listen long enough, you can be encouraged by journalists ignoring what many would argue is the groupthink of the ABC. But the reaction from within can be discouraging.

This month the 7.30 program aired a strong story in which whistleblowers revealed how some asylum-seekers were committing identity fraud to win humanitarian visas. Through government action and individual cases in the past, we know this is a real issue but not one the ABC normally likes to ventilate. The reward 7.30 and its journalists received for this attempt to report reality was to be attacked by the ABC’s Media Watch program. The spat continues.

Likewise, this newspaper has been engaged in a debate with Media Watch. This time the program has been defending the ABC’s alarmist reporting of claims that climate scientists had received death threats. Outsiders sometimes wonder what is more important at the national broadcaster: the facts or their impact on a political agenda. (source)

Chris Merritt also writes on the front page of the Inquirer, in a piece entitled “The world according to ABC has its own climate“, about the experiences of Marc Hendrickx, of the ABC News Watch blog, when attempting to obtaining corrections and clarifications from the ABC:

Alan Sunderland, head of policy at ABC news, gives every indication of being a reasonable man. But so does Marc Hendrickx, who runs the blog ABC News Watch. He has been left dumbfounded at what he sees as the national broadcaster’s inability to accept that when it comes to climate change, the organisation is riddled with groupthink that diminishes its journalism on this subject.

Even when the ABC qualifies earlier reports on climate change – as it did this week – it does so in a way that Hendrickx believes is grudging and inadequate.

“Getting the ABC to make corrections over factual mistakes is like pulling a camel through a needle,” he says. “They can’t even get the correction right.”

Throughout the past few weeks, Sunderland has been the man in the hot seat – responding to requests for explanations about the way the ABC has conducted itself during the unfolding debate about two associated issues:

Were there ever any real death threats made against climate change scientists at the Australian National University in the six months to June 4 last year, as reported by the ABC at the time?

Did the ABC succumb to groupthink on climate change by giving little weight – and no coverage until this week – to the fact Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim had reached a conclusion that at the very least undermined, if not demolished, the ABC’s June 4 report? (source)

And the lead editorial is entitled “Media Watch keeps an eye out for ABC heretics”, which refers to the FoI story:

The latest example has been its dissembling defence of The Canberra Times and the ABC over erroneous reports that climate scientists at the Australian National University had received emailed death threats. The original newspaper report, in June last year, was taken up with such gusto by the ABC that it was followed internationally. The revelation of death threats against scientists played conveniently into a narrative that portrays climate sceptics as irrational fringe-dwellers ranting at the reason of science. But a crucial element in the story was wrong.

A Freedom of Information application unearthed the crucial emails, which contained abuse, but not death threats. We revealed this, and the ABC failed to fully report it. So, strangely, Media Watch decided to shoot the messenger. We are pleased to report that the ABC, belatedly yesterday, corrected its reporting – although you had to dig deep into its website to find it. This, in itself, is unsettling because rather than resist stubbornly for three weeks, media organisations should be eager to correct mistakes, in order to keep faith with consumers. (source)

None of this should surprise anyone who has read this blog for any length of time. Is the ABC subject to groupthink on climate? Do bears defecate in the woods? Is the Pope catholic? Is the Climate Commission a paid mouthpiece for government climate propaganda? Is the IPCC a corrupt political organisation founded solely to find evidence of a conclusion already reached? I could go on…
The Australian also prints Christopher Booker’s damning critique of the BBC’s bias on climate change – of which the ABC is a clone.
Note: some of these links are paywalled. I will try to put up scans in due course.
Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

ANU 'death threats' – ABC posts a correction

25 May, 2012 by

FOI request

Which raises more questions than it answers:

ANU emails

Posted Thu May 24, 2012 4:13pm AEST

News Online: On May 11, the ABC reported on the release under FOI of a number of emails relating to climate change received by staff at the ANU. The story should have made clear that the emails were found to be abusive, but NOT to constitute death threats or clear threats of violence. However, the ANU maintains that staff have received death threats in other communications not released under the FOI action. The story has been clarified and updated. (link)

In particular, this sentence:

“The ANU maintains that staff have received death threats in other communications not released under the FOI action.“

So I have sent a further email to the ANU to clarify this statement in a number of ways without having to go through the full FoI procedure. Although why the ANU don’t just simply show us the evidence they have of these alleged “death threats” is a mystery. At least then we could all stop this messing around.

The Australian has another piece on the ABC’s defence of its position, entitled “ABC ‘evidence’ of climate threats old, and wrong” – link to follow.

More intrigue (click to enlarge)

 

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,
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