Agmates

QLD Premier Anna Bligh has revealed that her government uses tax payers money to employ 640 media spin doctors.

The Premier last night released figures showing the government employed 640 people in media, communications, graphic design, marketing and advertising.

Premier Bligh only released the figures after continued pressure from LNP leader Lawrence Springborg.

ANNA Bligh has defended the number of State Government communications staff, saying they are necessary for circulating important safety messages.

When you break the numbers down tax payers are paying for 1 spin doctor per 6,200 Queenslander’s. If they are paid the average wage of $54,000 per year plus super, QLD tax payers are paying $37,670,400 in wages alone each year for Bligh’s Labor media propaganda machine.

Whats the safety message Anna. Vote Labor or else?

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Update 2.32pm, 10th November.

LNP child safety spokeswoman Jann Stuckey writes:

Child safety Minister Margaret Keech was obviously more interested in spin than addressing the worst staff attrition rate in the government.

Her Department employs a media/pr team of 10, including a director, a media manager, a principal media officer, two senior media officers, two senior communications officers and two communications officers, which with salaries and on-costs would easily run to a million dollars-plus.

How can the Minister and this Labor Government justify spending of this scale, when 35 per cent of Child Safety staff resigned last year. That’s 35 per cent, yet during that time the Department’s media unit grew from seven to 10.

Surely a million dollars would be better invested in the improvement of pay and conditions for frontline child safety officers, who, I’m informed, have impossible caseloads, in some instances as high as 60 vulnerable, at-risk children.

Have your Say.

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I am offended by the Rudd Government and more particularly Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong [ pictured ] spending $14 million dollars on climate change ads since July.

Back on the 1st of September we nominated these ads as worthy of our Bullshit Watch award.

In the article I stated that these ads are just blatant propaganda.

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The Government has set aside almost $14 million for a four-month climate change campaign, which started in July and ends next month.

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If the government is fair dinkum about tackling climate change why wasn’t this money put into alternative energy. It could have been spent on installing solar hotwater in 7,000 homes at a $2,000 rebate a home.

They could have invested it in developing an accurate, reliable and simple to use accounting methodology for soil carbon. It could have been used to lobby the UN to accept soil carbon sequestration or a myriad of other constructive ways to cut our CO2 emissions.

The other reason it is outrageous is because it would suggest that Minister Wong is being a hypocrite.

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“When in opposition, Senator Wong, as Labor’s spokesperson on public accountability, repeatedly attacked the then Howard government for running government advertising before legislation has passed the parliament.”

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There is nothing that turns us off a politician more than them being an obvious hypocrite.

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Have Your say!

According to the Greens in Western Australia Climate Change is going to drown Perth to the Top of its tallest buildings.

Perths tallest buildings are about 200 metres.

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.We hope the good people of WA give these scare mongering fraudsters a huge miss in this weekends state election.

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Have your say! Is this craziness or what?

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Bob Long has made an offical complaint to the ACCC over the governments blatant ‘climate change’ TV ad that it is spending $9million dollars of tax payers money on to re-educate us.

The ad is blatant propaganda and registers on our Bulls**t Watch.

If you have not seen it the offensive ad is in the video below followed by Bobs Complaint.

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I wish to complain about the Australian Government “Climate Change” advertisement currently showing on Australian TV (August, 2008).

I claim the advertisement fails these Advertising Standards Bureau Truth and Accuracy issues:

1. Misleading or deceptive advertising.
2. Misrepresentation in advertising.
3. The exploitation of community concerns in relation to portraying a product or service as benefiting the environment, if it does not.

A. The advertisement says, “scientists warn”, without qualification or reference to whom those scientists are. There are many scientists who dispute that climate change will cause significant problems. [1], [2], [3]

B. There is no qualification of what “hard hit” means.

C. There is no qualification of how high temperatures are supposedly going to rise; thus it is impossible to know from the advertisement whether such rises are significant and will thus result in a “hard hit”.

D. There is no qualification of whether “more scare” water applies to certain areas of Australia, nor of how significant such scarcity will be.

E. The reference to “economists warn” does not reference those economists, or that there are dissenting economists with differing views.

F. The advertisement uses the term “carbon pollution”. That is a meaningless (and misleading and deceptive) phrase. Carbon is an element. In the context of the climate change discussion, carbon as an element is not part of the discussion. The advertisement should refer (at least) to carbon dioxide, which is a gas.

G. The advertisement states that “carbon”, hence carbon dioxide, is a pollutant. But carbon dioxide is an essential gas present in trace amounts in the atmosphere. Without it, life on earth would not exist. Except in high concentrations, carbon dioxide is harmless to humans. There is considerable doubt that increases in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are a significant cause of increased temperatures. [4], [5]

H. The advertisement implies all climate change is something to avoid (”We’re developing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to tackle climate change…”), but does not mention that climate has been changing for thousands of years, with the earth having been both colder and warmer than it is now. That is a misrepresentation of facts. [6]

I. The advertisement exploits community concerns by attempting to cause fear by using the phrases “hard hit”, “must act now” and “can’t afford not to”.

J. The claim that we “must act now” are misleading because it implies temperatures are rising at a dangerous rate. In fact, global temperatures since 1998 have not passed that 1998 peak, and early 2008 global average temperatures are marginally less than the equivalent period of 1988 (repeating: 1988, not 1998). [7],

K. The claim that a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will “tackle climate change”, presumably successfully, is false and deceptive. Australian greenhouse gas emissions are less than 1.5% of global emissions, so even if such a scheme were to be totally successful in eliminating all Australian emissions, the effect globally would be minuscule.

L. The phrase “We can’t afford not to” is misleading and deceptive. There is no qualification as to what the costs will be, so it is impossible for the advertisement to so claim.

M. The advertisement displays images of both cooling towers and “smoke stacks”. Both are deceptive. In the case of cooling towers, the only emission is of condensed water vapour. In the case of the smoke stacks, there is a misleading confusion of particulate pollution with colourless carbon dioxide gas.

The advertisement thus fails, in many instances, the tests for truth and accuracy.

Bob Long

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Have Your say? Do you find it offensive that the Government is spending $9m of tax payers money on blatant propaganda like this?
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In todays Brisbane Courier Mail the Headlines scream - “The Future is Grim reveals Climate Change Report”

Courier Mail reporter Peter Michaels reports -

QUEENSLAND will become hotter and super-cyclones will batter the coast as far south as Brisbane by 2070, the nation’s top scientists have warned.

“In a top-level ministerial briefing note (that was just by coincidence, funny that) seen by The Courier-Mail, the Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, the co-ordinating body for the nation’s 15 peak scientific bodies, offers stark predictions about climate change.”

Thats the spin - what a pity a professional journalist does not check the facts. He’s what the so called global warming has done in creating Super cyclones in Queensland from none other than the governments own Bureau of Meteorology.

It would have taken Mr Michaels about 5 minutes to find that information.

Scientists are also saying that they can’t find a trend in cyclones. Independent Scientist are questioning the CSIRO’s findings that temperatures are set to soar and drought’s become as frequent as every second year.

The standards of mainstream journalist in Australia is on a downward spiral. It would seem that they are happy to write and print anything that the Government spoon up to them without verifying its credibility.

I wonder if Prime Minister Rudd told them that they sky was falling would they print that. - just maybe?

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Have your say!

South Australian farmer John Michelmore writes:

It is blatantly obvious to many that carbon is not a pollutant, but an integral part of the environment.

Again the government has the cart before the horse. They sign to Kyoto protocol and embark on the introduction of a carbon trading scheme.

They then spend money on a community education scheme (9 million dollars by October) knowing that the majority of the population hasn’t a clue about the long term impact on Australia, when our competitors USA, China, Indonesia etc etc etc may well not introduce this tax burden to their economies.

The government also knows that there are serious questions in relation to the science behind the IPCC reports and the Guano Report (sorry for the spelling error). The reports are in the mainstream media almost daily if one cares to look.

For example David Evens who was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005 says of himself:

“I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”

In this tremendous article in last Fridays Australian Newspaper David says:

It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

“There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.”

An education scheme for the general public would include this, wouldn’t it?? Education is done as part of a decision making process, not after the fact.

Based on the governments ads I’ve seen, this is not education, its propaganda in its worst form.

Education is when the public is given both sides of the story and allowed to decide for themselves on whether man made carbon dioxide emissions are impacting the world climate.

Education is not, calling carbon a pollutant and blaming the poor state of the River Murray on climate change induced by our carbon dioxide emissions. The state of the River Murray is only a function of poor government in Australia, nothing else.

Australia adopting a carbon trading scheme will have NO impact on global climates because we as a population are insignificant in the world.

I only hope that the general public can see through the propaganda.

Sure I agree we need to look after the planet for our descendants; but economic suicide for Australia isn’t going to be at all helpful to our kids.

I just can’t believe that our government believe that Australia’s adoption of a carbon trading scheme will make any difference to what other sovereign countries do. In the meantime Australia and its population will go broke.

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Have Your say! Have you seen the Ads. I was offended the very first time. What do you think?

Last week in Australian Dire Climate Change Prediction Just a Fantasy we questioned the validity of climate change reports prepared by Australia’s supposed leading scientific research organization CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific & Industry Research Organization).

Those reports were extensively quoted by by Federal Agriculture minister Tony Burke & Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the mainstream media to convince Australians to act now on climate change or perish.

Tony Burke:

Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has likened a scientific study into links between climate change and drought to the final chapters of a disaster novel. Mr Burke today released a joint assessment by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO, which found that what are now considered to be one in 25 year climate events could become as frequent as once every one to two years.

Kevin Rudd:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has told ABC1’s Insiders the report paints a very disturbing picture about the future of droughts in Australia…

“Exceptional circumstances drought conditions … will occur twice as often and with twice the area of droughted parts of Australia included. Now this is a serious revision of the impact of climate change on drought.”

Shock Horror - we’ll all be doomed screamed the mainstream media - without questioning the validity of the reports, after all they were quoting Australia’s own CSIRO. Well I was skeptical and so too were our readers. See readers Comments.

But then Dr David Stockwell, a leading expert on ecological niche modeling, decided to check the CSIRO’s figures and assumptions, and found, surprise surprise:

….it is highly likely the confidence intervals were grossly underestimated and so it is also likely that only one or two regions (SWWA) show statistically significant increase in predicted droughts, not 3 or 4 as claimed by the authors. I am more confident in my original assessment that the results show no significant increase in drought due to greenhouse warming in almost all regions of Australia

Stockwell’s conclusion is hampered by the fact that can’t get all the data and calculations the CSIRO used to fashion the latest of its alarmist reports.

He’d asked the CSIRO to hand over the data for this peer-reviewing, but got this answer:

I’m not able to hand over the data from the 13 models, due to restrictions on Intellectual Property, but I can describe the methods used to determine statistical significance.

The CSIRO refuses to expose its analysis to experts for checking by independent Scientists even though Stockwell, believes it is seriously flawed.

The CSIRO’s report is the basis for a renewed Government fear campaign that could lead to the spending of billions of dollars on a problem that may not exist.

Scientist Steve McIntyre in Australia’s leading Science blog “Climate Audit is scathing of the CSIRO in his article on the issue.

As I had said in comments on the issue CSIRO now stands for Completely, Scary, Incredulous, Rubbish, Organization.

Convincing the Australian public that it must act now on climate change is actually more critical too the Rudd governments survival. See this excellent appraisal of the situation by the Australian Editor Paul Kelly to understand what is happening here. Government caught in Carbon Crunch

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Have Your Say! What do you think.

Last weekend Senior weather forecasters Predicted the best soaking rains for 2008.

“We’ve been watching several computer simulations for the past few days and they are indicating that some of the best rain for 2008 is likely next week, and this is forecast to fall over some of our worst drought affected areas,” Mr Whitaker said in a statement.

“Widespread rainfall totals of 25 to 50mm are likely over large areas of western Queensland, western NSW, northern Victoria and South Australia from Monday to Friday.

Well this is where the rain fell.

The map above is from the Bureau of Meteorology from the 1st to 10th of July. Areas that received over 25mls (1 inch) are green. You can see for yourself how accurate these prediction were just a few days out. They were wrong - what a surprise.

Apparently the scientists can’t be accurate 3 days out, but 30 years from now they can. What a ridiculous assumption / conclusion that is.

Each day we hear of the dire predictions for our rainfall and temperature in 20-30 and 50 years time. We are expected to take this computer modeling seriously (and unbelievably State and Federal governments are) when they aren’t even remotely accurate just days ahead.

Climatologist Stewart Franks an expert in hydro-climatic variability at the University of Newcastle in NSW said scenarios set out by Ross Garnaut in his Emission Trading Scheme recommendations were simply wrong. He said

“The whole idea that you can say that by 2030 or 2040 rainfall will be a certain percentage less is a complete nonsense because it ignores the natural variability,”

Read all that Stewart had to say in an article in this weeks Australian Newspaper. Garnaut scenario ’simply wrong’

New South Wales Treasurer Michael Costa caused a stir this week when he called parts of Professor Garnaut’s report “Chicken Little arguments” (You know -The Sky is falling”) In his column in the Australian he says:

“For example, claims from some quarters that the Great Barrier Reef would be destroyed if Australia, which emits less than 2 per cent of global greenhouse gases, does not adopt an ETS are patent nonsense.

Chicken Little arguments are no substitute for getting right the important details on issues of far-reaching consequence.”

Photo 2: Below is a BOM map showing the % of rainfall received across Australia for the last 2 years compared to the mean.

Federal agriculture minister Tony Burke (pictured below) earlier this month released a joint assessment by the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO. In particular, the study found exceptionally high temperatures would occur almost yearly, while low rainfall would almost double in frequency from current figures. He said:

“While this is a scientific report, parts of these high level projections read more like a disaster novel than a scientific report.”

“What’s clear is that the cycle of drought is going to be more regular and deeper than ever.”

Minister Burke even though he was being serious is quiet correct. It is just science fiction.

Finally, lets keep it all in a bit of perspective. Heres the BOM map showing the area of Australia that is in drought for the last 2 years. To paraphrase Stewart Franks - we have seen it all before and we’ll see it all again. The good seasons and the bad.

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Have your Say! Am I “barking mad” or is all the climate change hysteria something these people are going to look back at and be very embarrassed about?