Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Two Questions for Your Federal Parliamentarian

By

WE all know that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the main source of news and information for many Australians. The ABC is funded and owned by the government, but the ABC is apparently editorially independent as a consequence of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983.

So, who is the ABC accountable to? Certainly not to you or me.

The ABC, for all practical purposes, is exempt from the normal scrutiny that can be applied to government-funded institutions and departments. In particular the ABC’s programming material is exempt from Freedom of Information Requests [1].

So, the ABC can deploy its staff to spend hours and hours phoning people about me, asking the most intimate and bizarre questions and volunteering information to the same people that has no basis in fact. What can I do about it? Absolutely nothing.

Last week the ABC phoned around to get snips of fact about me that it could intertwine with lies with a plan for a national broadcast Monday night on its Media Watch program. I tried to head-that-off with full and frank answers to the many questions they asked me [2]. Indeed I provided them with a lot of information that was none of their business.

But not content with all of that, this week ABC journalists and researchers continue with the same activity; they continue to phone about. And from the feedback I have received from those the ABC has phoned: they continue to peddle misinformation about me, and misinformation about the natural history of the Murray River.

These activities are undertaken at tax payer expense, but there is no way I can find out who specifically they are phoning, or what specifically they are telling people. [3]

Questions need to be asked in the Australian Parliament about this exemption and about the ABCs continual harassment of me for daring to suggest that it is in the national interest for the Murray River’s estuary to be restored – for the 7.6 kilometres of concrete sea dyke to be removed from the bottom of the Murray Darling basin. [4]

*********
[1] ABC FOI – You can’t open the chamber of secrets
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/abc-foi-you-cant-open-chamber-of.html

“For those considering an FOI request to the ABC for program related material, such as internal correspondence that might provide an insight into the way errors get into the ABC’s editorial process, beware of a clause in the FOI act that lists the ABC as an exempt agency with respect to documents “in relation to its program material and datacasting content” (Part II of schedule 2)…

“ABC cite ABC v University of Technology Sydney in relationship to this and from the ruling it seems the only way to open the vault is for the FOI ACT to be amended to allow access to ABC documents.”

[2] Media Watch Under Scrutiny
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/2012/03/media-watch-under-scrutiny-2/

[3] Most government organisations are covered by a set of generally applicable exemptions many of which require a balancing of public interest. The ABC, however, could assign 10 people to research me and my activities and there would be nothing I could do about it or find out about it.

[4] Podcast available at the Sydney Institute http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/speaker/jennifer-marohasy/

Watching Her Watching Them: Graham Young

By

Jennifer Marohasy has been campaigning to have the barrages – a form of dam – removed from what most of us would think of as the mouth of the River Murray. While much has been made of the fact that the Murray often doesn’t run into the sea, hardly anyone is aware that it is stopped from doing that by a series of dams.

During the Federation plus 100 drought that we have just experienced, water was being siphoned off from higher up the Murray and Darling to keep the lakes at the mouth of the Murray full. If they had been in their natural state the tide would have done that for free, and saved a considerable amount of water for upstream communities.

On Line Opinion first published Jennifer’s controversial views on the lower lakes in August 2008.[1] We did that because they made sense. The current arrangements with the lakes are obviously artificial, and their listing as a RAMSAR wetland is just as obviously mistaken.

Media Watch contacted Marohasy on Friday seeking answers to a list of questions with the intention of going to air tonight. If another program behaved like this they would run the risk of making a star appearance on Media Watch. Marohasy formed the opinion that the story had already been written. That seems a reasonable point of view.

Certainly the questions that Media Watch put to Marohasy indicated that they either had done no independent research about the lakes, or were incapable of understanding simple physical concepts. The questions about her sources of income were bizarre and mostly irrelevant, but obviously intended to frame her as a stooge for some group or another…

Read more here: //www.ambitgambit.com/2012/03/12/media-watching-her-watching-them/

********
Saving the Coorong by Restoring Its Native State Available Online here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7762

Media Watch Under Scrutiny

By

MEDIA Watch contacted me on Friday with a barrage of questions concerning my work on the need to restore the Murray River’s estuary. Their line of questioning suggested that I was misleading the Australian public on the important issue of water reform in the Murray Darling. Indeed, the implication was that I am but a stooge for vested interests.

It appears Media Watch is contemplating asserting or implying that my professional judgement and integrity as a scientist has been influenced or corrupted by personal financial gain. Accordingly, I have sought legal advice on the matter, and include this in my full response that can be downloaded here:

https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/JenniferMarohasy_ReplytoMediaWatch_Amended12March.pdf

My responses to their specific questions also follows:

Media Watch: Do you accept that the vast majority of recognised experts on the natural history and hydrology of the Lower Lakes disagree with your conclusion that they were estuarine immediately prior to the erection of the cialis Murray Mouth barrages, or at any time in the past 2000 years?

Jennifer Marohasy: No. The relevant scientific literature, as published in peer-reviewed journals by recognised experts, indicates that the Lower Lakes were estuarine prior to the erection of the Murray Mouth barrages.

The following quote from a scientific paper published in the journal Marine Geology by Professors R.P. Bourman, A.P. Belperio, C.V. Murray-Wallace and N. Harvey, citing E. Barnett, seems to sum up the conclusion of these recognised experts:

“Originally a vibrant, highly productive estuarine ecosystem of 75,000 ha, characterised by mixing of brackish and fresh water with highly variable flows, barrage construction has transformed the lakes into freshwater bodies with permanently raised water levels; freshwater discharge has been reduced by 75% and the tidal prism by 90% (Bourman and Barnett, 1995; Harvey, 1996).”

Professor John Cann and co-workers have studied fossil foraminifera – tiny protozoa with shells of calcium carbonate preserved in the sediments of the Lower Lakes – concluding that the changes in the foraminiferal assemblages over the most recent 2,000 years indicate a general trend of increasing marine influence, up until the construction of the barrages that now block the natural ebb and flow between the Lower Lakes and Southern Ocean.

Professor Peter Gell writing in the recently published The Sage Handbook of Environmental Change has commented that the natural state of the Lower Lakes was tidal, that the lakes have been incorrectly listed as freshwater in the International Ramsar Convention, and that until their natural estuarine character is recognised it will be difficult to reverse the long-term decline in their ecological health.

Geoscience Australia classifies the Lower Lakes as part of a wave dominated barrier estuary with positive annual hydrodynamics.

UPDATE: I have been informed by Media Watch that they will NOT be running their intended program tonight (“This item will not be on this week’s show”). It would appear that the possibility of a defamation action coupled with a solid explanation of the science and history of the Lower Lakes has caused Media Watch to change their program. I would like to particularly thank those people who sent emails to Media Watch this morning.

[Read more…] about Media Watch Under Scrutiny

Great Barrier Reef ‘Research’ – A Litany of False Claims

By

WE may live in the information age, but how true are many of the scientific claims we read and hear?  For ten years the World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF, has been campaigning to ‘Save the Great Barrier Reef’. [1,2,3] When the WWF campaign was first launched in June 2001 it was claimed Diuron was killing seagrass and dioxins were killing dugongs and so both these pesticides should be banned.  Ten years on and the ban on Diuron appears imminent, but the chemical is probably no more harmful than the dioxin that was found to be natural.[4]

[Read more…] about Great Barrier Reef ‘Research’ – A Litany of False Claims

More ABC Bias, But Anyway

By

I should probably be flattered to be invited on to the popular ABC TV program Q&A as a panelist.  But why is the promo for the program next Monday advertising Tim Flannery as ‘scientist’ and me as ‘climate sceptic’?

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

Tony Jones could refer to us both as ‘scientists’.  Alternatively the promo could suggest Tim is an ‘alarmist’ and me the ‘denier’.

I am not even a climate sceptic… but rather sceptical of what was the consensus position on anthropogenic global warming.

Anyway, it would be good if there were a few other so-called climate change sceptics at the event…  and also some people who don’t believe more water for South Australia will necessarily solve all the environmental problems of the Murray Darling Basin.   So, I am encouraging readers of this blog to try for a place in the studio audience next Monday by applying here: http://www2b.abc.net.au/AudienceBooking/Client/AudienceRegistration.aspx
And you can send in questions via email using this link http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/ask.htm

Also, the annual Australian Environment Foundation Conference is this Saturday at Rydges in Brisbane.  Max Rheese is organising a Q&A session at the Conference dinner on Saturday night, to give me some practice in advance of Monday, October 18th.  Apparently there will be a ‘Tony Jones’ at the dinner and through him you can ask me questions.  It should be a lot of fun.  You can register here: http://aefweb.info/

Water in Murray River Not At Record Low

By

I spilt my tea over a story at ABC News Online last Thursday.

Entitled ‘Murray River flows at record low’, without quoting a specific source, it stated:

“The water level in the Murray River is at its lowest since records began more than 100 years ago.”

I rang a couple of friends that live beside the River last Friday and they said it still has lots of water in it.

Yet less than 100 years ago, in 1914, it ran dry.

Indeed the ABC News Online piece goes on to explain that South Australian irrigators are still receiving 80 percent of their water entitlements so there must be a bit of water still in the river.

I contacted the ABC and they replied that it may take up to four weeks for a detailed response.

I contacted the Murray Darling Basin Commission and they explained that despite record low inflow:

“Because of the weirs and the provision of regulated flows downstream of dams, water levels are higher than historical minimums.”

It would appear that the ABC has confused record low inflows with record low water levels – a significant error in the scheme of things.

The story then goes on to quote water expert Peter Cullen and South Australia’s Minister for the Murray, Karlene Maywald, lamenting the catastrophe.

But there is no catastrophe because despite the dry weather, the dams and weirs that everyone loves to hate, have served their purpose so far – they stored water when it did rain, so the river can keep flowing during this extended drought.

Dry Murray 1914 blog.JPG
Picture taken of the dry Murray River bed at Riversdale on 1st January 1914 – courtesy of Daryl McDonald.