06/02/2020

(AU) Scott Morrison Says He Won't Be 'Bullied' On Climate By Inner City Voters

SBS - Tom Stayner

Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he "won't be bullied" into changing his government's position on climate change as National MPs renew demands for more investment in coal.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks in Parliament House, Canberra. Source: AAP

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has declared he won't be "bullied" by inner-city voters as he downplayed concerns of a fresh climate war inside the Coalition.
Some National MPs are demanding more coal-fired power stations and urging Scott Morrison to resist calls to take stronger action on climate change.
Nationals Leader Michael McCormack also declared the Coalition should hold the line on climate policy, following a challenge to his leadership from former leader Barnaby Joyce.
Mr Morrison said being in coalition with the Nationals had ensured the government's response to climate change was sensible and balanced, rather than being dictated by those in the inner city.
Re-elected Nationals Party leader Michael McCormack and newly-elected deputy leader David Littleproud maintain the Coalition is united on climate policy. AAP /Lukas Coch)
"We listen to all Australians and we listen to Australians right across the country, not just those in the inner city," he told Nine's Today. 
He said action should not come at the expense of jobs and industries.
“What we’ll do is take practical actions that deal with these challenges and that challenge is living in a hotter, drier and longer summer.
“So we won’t be bullied into higher taxes and higher electricity prices.”
Mr Morrison's comments echoed those of his deputy prime minister during the height of the bushfire crisis.
In November, Mr McCormack attacked those who were linking climate change to the severity of the bushfires, labelling them "inner-city raving lunatics".
Mr McCormack held off an attempt by Barnaby Joyce to reclaim the Nationals’ leadership at a party room meeting on Tuesday.
Mr Joyce's platform had been backed by Senator Matt Canavan, the pair urging the government to increase support for coal and investment in new coal-fired power stations.
It is understood Nationals MP George Christensen also spoke out against climate change policy and advocated for coal at the first Coalition meeting of the year held hours after the leadership spill.
While Mr Morrison has previously said the government's policy on climate would "evolve" in the wake of the bushfire crisis, Mr McCormack said the Coalition should not stray from its current climate policies.
“It’s all well and good for some people to say we should stop all fossil fuels,” he told SBS News.
“Well go and tell that to somebody in central Queensland who is working hard for and on behalf of their family … they deserve a job too.”
The Morrison government has committed to reducing emissions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels by 2030 under the global Paris Agreement.
But it has faced pressure over its planned use of so-called carry-over credits to meet this target from previous emission agreements.
Nationals Deputy Leader David Littleproud maintained the Coalition is united on taking action on climate change.
“We made international commitments and we are going to live up to them and instead of us beating ourselves up saying we’re this boogeyman in the global stage – we’re not,” he said.
“The quiet Australians out there have had a gutfull of all of this narrative … they just want action … they want us to get on with the job.”

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(AU) If There's A Silver Lining In The Clouds Of Choking Smoke It's That This May Be A Tipping Point

The Guardian - 

Australia’s horrific bushfires could be the catalyst that pushes the world to a mass recognition that it’s time to act
Smoke form the almost-biblical fires bearing down on Canberra: ‘This is a stark reminder that climate change seems gradual until it is on your doorstep.’ Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Media
Michael E Mann
Michael E Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book, with Tom Toles, is The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy (Columbia University Press, 2016)
As a climate scientist on sabbatical in Australia, I’ve had plenty of conversations about the climate crisis lately as bushfires have burned their way to the front of everyone’s mind. Although the Murdoch media make it seem as if there’s plenty of debate, the reality is that most Australians I talk to get it.
And why shouldn’t they? More carbon pollution means warmer temperatures which dry out the landscape, making it easier for fires to spread. The fact that the bushfires tore through Australia as we ended the hottest decade ever recorded is no coincidence.
But those opposed to climate action have tied themselves in knots trying to fool the public into believing that it’s really environmentalists and arsonists at fault.
Yet it’s hard to sell denial when people are busy fleeing the flames. It’s tough to distract from the reality of climate change when plumes of smoke dim the sky, and when every breath of soot-filled air stings your throat. As one climate scientist colleague put it in response to the almost-biblical fires bearing down on Canberra: “This is a stark reminder that climate change seems gradual until it is on your doorstep.”
That’s precisely what happened to Jeremy Wright, a Rotary Club member who came to a lecture I gave the other day at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney. Wright lost much of his family farm that has been around for 180 years, outside Milton in south-east NSW where the Australian author Henry Kendall was born. The bridge that provides access to the farm burned and he lost a herd of steer, several vehicles and his farm shed. Climate change is no longer just a theoretical construct for Jeremy.
Some of the steer that died in the fire on Jeremy Wright’s farm on New Year’s Eve.
Despite the tragedies playing out around the country, I’m hopeful we’re hitting a tipping point. Not a physical one – which we will hopefully avoid, where the global climate undergoes dramatic, irreversible and catastrophic change – but a psychological one.
Here and around the world these fires appear to be pushing us toward a tipping point in public consciousness, a mass recognition that we must act.
But there has always been a disconnect between what the public knows and what their elected leaders choose to do. Ruling political parties in Australia, the US and Britain are particularly intransigent, their denial driven by ties to fossil-fuel interests and bolstered by the Murdoch media’s steady drumbeat of denial.
It’s something I’ve noticed quite clearly in my time here. The Australians I’ve talked to about climate change seem well aware of the science, are very concerned about reducing emissions and, most of all, are frustrated by their leaders’ unwillingness to take meaningful action.
If there can possibly be a silver lining to the clouds of smoke from the bushfires, it is that they are galvanising public opinion, making it clear that deniers’ and delayers’ rhetoric is a smokescreen to cover for the fossil-fuel industry. Much like how sea level rise and unprecedented wildfires, heatwaves and floods in the US have begun softening the Republican party’s staunch denial, the bushfires have brought the climate crisis to the front and centre of Australian consciousness.
For years, fossil-fuel-funded voices have taken to Rupert Murdoch’s media outlets to tell the public that climate change isn’t real, or it won’t be a problem until years from now, at which point we’ll all be so rich we can just buy our way out of trouble. They told the public to ignore climate scientists who are ringing the planetary fire alarm, that all is well despite the increasingly stark warnings from those who have devoted their lives to studying the issue.
Sadly, despite criticism from within the Murdoch empire, and even from Murdoch’s son James, the promotion of denial and delay continues unabated. “Warming is good for us” read the headline on Andrew Bolt’s column in the Herald Sun the other day to widespread derision as climate change-fuelled bushfires continue to engulf the continent. The headline on Paul Kelly’s column in the Australian read “Any climate policy change is going to be slow burn”, with no apparent sense of irony.
But telling people to ignore the fire alarm doesn’t work so well when they can feel the heat, with flames consuming their country and with so much smoke it’s made a full circuit around the globe.We won’t know if this will be a tipping point for the public’s demand for climate action until we have the benefit of hindsight. But people will have an option: to vote out politicians in denial, and vote in candidates who are honest about the issue.
Perhaps we shouldn’t call it a tipping point, but a flipping point.
Then perhaps she’ll be right, mate.

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(AU) Fire Royal Commission Accepts The Role Of Climate Change: PM

AFR - Phillip Coorey

The royal commission into the bushfires will operate on the assumption that the scale and severity of the blazes was fuelled by climate change, Scott Morrison says.
As the Coalition again grapples with internal divisions over climate change, the Prime Minister gave the undertaking to stop the royal commission being distracted by the brawl over whether climate change was real.
Scott Morrison and Michael McCormack in parliament after the Nationals leadership spill. Alex Ellinghausen
While Mr Morrison is unambiguous in drawing links between the fires and climate change, others in his party continue to hedge or deny.
Nationals leader Michael McCormack, who on Monday survived a leadership spill led by Barnaby Joyce and others who do not subscribe to climate change science, is choosing his words carefully so as not to further inflame his already-fractured party.
"What we do, no doubt,  probably has a fair effect on the climate and where we're going to,'' he said of the contributions of humans to global warming.
"How much? That's for scientists to determine.''
Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton was also sceptical, saying arson was partly to blame for the fires.
"I don't see huge points of difference in our party room ... we're experiencing hotter weather,'' he said.
"But did the bushfires start in some of these regions because of climate change? No. It started because somebody lit a match."
Mr Morrison has announced that former defence force chief Mark Binskin will lead the royal commission into the fires which continue to burn in NSW and the ACT.
The Prime Minister has written to the states seeking input for the terms of reference. Under pressure not to ignore climate change, Mr Morrison said that would be the operating premise of the probe.
"It is accepted that climate change has impacted Australia, and that we're in for longer, hotter, dryer summers,'' he said.
"The royal commission assumes that our climate has changed and there is climate change.
"The issue is what you do about it, the practical actions that keep people safe, and emissions reductions, land clearing. All of these things are critical to that."
He maintained the hazard reduction was just as, if not more, important than emissions reduction.
Despite pressure from within sections of his party, Mr Morrison is holding firm against doing more to decrease Australia's emissions.
He was lukewarm when asked whether he would follow the example of Britain's conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnston, who has committed his nation to zero net emissions by 2050. Also, from 2035, the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars will be banned in the UK.
"I would never make a commitment like that if I couldn't tell the Australian people what it would cost them,'' Mr Morrison said of the 2050 target.
The leadership challenge in the Nationals was sparked by the sacking from cabinet of the party's deputy leader, Bridget McKenzie, over the sports rorts affair. That, in turn, has rekindled old tensions over climate change.
Mr McCormack told Sky News on Wednesday that Senator McKenzie would return to the frontbench at some stage.
He also said he wanted to change the rules in his party to make leadership challenges harder by introducing a threshold, similar to those Labor and the Liberals have introduced.
Having these rules adopted looms as another test of his leadership next week.
Mr Morrison will announce his new ministry today, Nationals Darren Chester and Keith Pitt are expected to take the cabinet spots of Senator McKenzie and Matt Canavan, who quit in an unsuccessful attempt to generate momentum for Mr Joyce's challenge.

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05/02/2020

(AU) Media Watch: News Corp's Fire Fight

ABC - Media Watch

A Media Watch feature on the bushfire crisis. We examine how News Corp’s loudest voices denied or downplayed the role of climate change.

Media Watch: News Corp's Fire Fight

 Transcript

ROWAN DEAN: Unprecedented bushfires? Unprecedented drought? No, this Australian summer has been the summer of unprecedented stupidity. Never before have we had to suffer such idiocy in public debate and political commentary, nationally and internationally, in relation to two of the most common and predictable occurrences in Australia’s climate cycle, drought and bushfires.  
- Outsiders, Sky News, 26 January, 2020
Hello, I’m Paul Barry, welcome to Media Watch.
And welcome to Groundhog Day, where the loudest voices at News Corp are adamant that the summer’s terrifying bushfires have nothing to do with climate change. 
Or, if they have, there’s nothing we can do about it. 
And, as always, welcome back to News Corp’s team of hand-picked, highly-paid columnists and TV hosts on Sky, who are leading the chorus: 
PETA CREDLIN: So, let me deal with the issue head on. Does climate change cause these fires? No. 
- Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020
CHRIS KENNY: … So that’s the key. The drought. And if drought can’t be blamed on climate change you can’t blame the fires on climate change, especially when so many are deliberately lit ...
- The Kenny Report, Sky News, 11 December, 2019
ALAN JONES: What’s burning in Victoria are eucalypts. What’s burning in South Australia are eucalypts ... When are we going to wake up and stop using this as an excuse to justify the climate change hoax?
- Richo & Jones, Sky News, 29 January, 2019
Passionate denial that the bushfires should make us act on climate change runs right across the Murdoch media in this country reaching an audience of millions. 
But it’s also echoed by Murdoch’s Fox News in the US, as two former Prime Ministers noted last month: 
MALCOLM TURNBULL: If you go to any of the right-wing think tanks or you read the Murdoch press, it's just full of climate denialism and it’s, it is designed to deflect from the real objective which has to be to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions …
- BBC News, 22 January, 2020
KEVIN RUDD: … the politics of fear around, let’s call it the cost of climate change action, has been well mobilised by the conservatives and Murdoch in Australia just as it’s been well mobilised in the United States by the conservatives through the echo chamber of Fox News.
- Fareed Zakaria GPS, CNN, 17 January, 2020
So why are Murdoch’s men and women so passionate in their protests? And what would it take to change their tune? Or, as Malcolm Turnbull asked the BBC: 
MALCOLM TURNBULL: You know, how many more lives and homes have to be lost before the climate change deniers acknowledge they are wrong?  
- BBC News, 22 January, 2020
It is a fair question. And it’s one that’s hard to answer. 
But News Corp’s deniers claim, remarkably, that science is on their side:
PETA CREDLIN: In this debate, like few others, fact is often replaced with misinformation, analysis with hysteria, evidence-based assessments with mere anecdote, or lectures from teenagers. And balance and sober discussions: they’re long dead. 
- Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020
It’s hard to disagree. But most bushfire experts would level that charge of ignoring the facts at Peta Credlin and her fellow climate sceptics, as this group of former fire chiefs made clear in November:
LEE JOHNSON: ... and certainly climate change is exacerbating the very, very dry conditions that we’re all experiencing.
NEIL BIBBY: Bushfires are a symptom of climate change.
MIKE BROWN: I’ve had 39 years of Tasmanian Fire Service and I didn’t see too many dry lightning strikes earlier on in my career but now, and due to climate change, we’re seeing this as a regular event. 
- NewsDay, Sky News, 14 November, 2019
The Bureau of Meteorology has also warned that climate change is making our fires worse, and made its verdict clear last month:
Hottest, driest year on record led to extreme bushfire season
- Bureau of Meteorology, press release, Annual Climate Statement 2019, 9 January, 2020
And three weeks ago, the Australian Academy of Science piped up with a similar conclusion:
The scientific evidence base shows that as the world warms due to human induced climate change, we experience an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events.
- The Australian Academy of Science, 10 January, 2020
Countless climate scientists say the same. 
Whether they’re at NASA or the Royal Society. 
Or at Britain’s Met Office and the CSIRO, which have just reviewed 57 scientific studies on climate change and reached the same conclusion.
But no amount of expert opinion is enough to convince the know-it-alls on Sky and 2GB and in the News Corp papers who argue tirelessly that climate change isn’t happening, or isn’t to blame, and/or this summer’s fires are nothing new:
ALAN JONES: From Black Saturday in 2009 to Ash Wednesday in 1983, Black Tuesday in 1967, Black Friday in 1939, Black Thursday in 1851. Millions of hectares were burnt …
… let me assure you, this is a long way from our worst-ever fire season.
- Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020
PETA CREDLIN: … tragic, yes. Unprecedented, sadly no. 
- Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020
The argument that we’ve seen it all before was laid out in The Australian on New Year’s Eve, just before the fires went nuclear on the New South Wales South Coast. 
And it is that grass fires across remote Australia in 74 -75 burnt a far larger area, while 2009’s Black Saturday fires in Victoria killed far more people.
But did either really match the impact of what we’ve seen this year?  
Mass evacuations, homes and businesses destroyed, 1 billion animals dead, an area 1.5 times the size of Tasmania burnt to ashes, our big cities choking with smoke and fires still raging.
It’s no wonder the Australian Academy of Science concludes -- for reasons you can read on our website:
The scale of these bushfires is unprecedented anywhere in the world.
- Australian Academy of Science, 10 January, 2020
Meanwhile, fire ecologist David Bowman told Media Watch that the scale, reach, duration and impact of this season’s inferno makes it like no other:
… there has never been a fire event that has affected the forested rim of Australia stretching down from southeast Queensland to NSW to Victoria, some parts of South Australia and parts of Western Australia and Tasmania ...
- Phone interview, Professor David Bowman, University of Tasmania, 30 January, 2020
Once again most bushfire experts agree. 
Yet once again, the News Corp choir insists it knows better:
CHRIS KENNY: … climate change exaggeration, alarmism and hysteria ...
- The Kenny Report, Sky News, 22 January, 2020
PETA CREDLIN: … hysteria or worse ...
- Credlin, Sky News, 20 January, 2020
ALAN JONES: … hysteria …
- Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020
ROWAN DEAN: … the loonies in the climate cult ...
- Outsiders, Sky News, 26 January, 2020
ANDREW BOLT: Lunatic stuff. 
- The Bolt Report, Sky News, 27 January, 2020
News Corp’s ridicule of climate science is not unprecedented.  
And Media Watch has ripped into its columnists and reporters many times.
But it’s been so bad this summer that insiders have condemned it too, like Rupert Murdoch’s son James and his wife Kathryn, who issued this public statement three weeks ago: 
“Kathryn and James’ views on climate are well established and their frustration with some of the News Corp and Fox coverage of the topic is also well known,” …
“They are particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary.”
- Daily Beast, 14 January, 2020
Note the word ‘denial’ coming from a Murdoch and director of News Corp. An extraordinary public rebuke. 
So what was News Corp’s reaction? 
Total silence. Until today, as far as we can see, the group’s Australian papers had not even mentioned it.  
But Rupert’s son wasn’t the only one. A few days earlier, outgoing finance manager at The Australian, Emily Townsend, sent this damning email, in which she told News Corp chairman Michael Miller:  
“I find it unconscionable to continue working for this company, knowing I am contributing to the spread of climate change denial and lies. The reporting I have witnessed in the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun is not only irresponsible, but dangerous and damaging to our communities …”
- The Guardian, 10 January, 2020
Townsend received huge support from colleagues for taking that stand. We’ve seen several of the messages. 
But Michael Miller responded in a statement that News does not ‘deny climate change’ or its threat, and is proud of its journalists and columnists:
“Our coverage has recognised that Australia is having a serious conversation about climate change and how to respond to it. However, it has also reflected there are a variety of views and opinions about the current fire crisis.”
- The Guardian, 10 January, 2020
But the main variety News has offered has been in new angles on denial. Such as this news story in The Australian -- featuring favourite sceptic Jennifer Marohasy -- claiming the weatherman is lying to us:
Bureau of Meteorology ‘cooling the past to declare record heat’
- The Australian, 20 December, 2019
Yes, seriously. The Australian is happy to suggest that the BOM is part of a huge conspiracy.
But if that was peak stupid, News Corp’s front-line columnists have offered more of the same. And with this line-up, who could be surprised?  
Sky’s big stars, featured in this ad in the Telegraph, Peta Credlin, Andrew Bolt, Paul Murray, Chris Kenny, and Alan Jones spread a similar message on man-made global warming and they don’t mince their words:
ANDREW BOLT: The bottom line, global warming may actually not be all bad, at all.
- The Bolt Report, Sky News, 27 January, 2020
ALAN JONES: … apparently now there’s a pile-on on Scott Morrison, it’s all his fault, and it’s climate change. I mean these people deserve to be buried. It’s just appalling.
- Richo & Jones, Sky News, 29 January, 2020
All these Sky hosts also write columns for the News Corp papers where like-minded souls like Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman sing a similar tune.
Their key theme this summer has been to blame the fires on the Greens and lack of hazard reduction to reduce the fuel load. 
And on Sky and 2GB Alan Jones has pushed that line too:
ALAN JONES: There’s one reason above all others for the fire catastrophe. You can’t start a fire without fuel.
- Jones & Credlin, Sky News, 28 January, 2020
Greater hazard reduction must certainly be looked at but New South Wales Rural Fire Chief Shane Fitzsimmons insists it’s no panacea and has said publicly that this year’s fires have been so fierce it would have hardly held them back:
SHANE FITZSIMMONS: … hazard reduction has a place and is a valuable tool for day-to-day fires, for normal seasons, but when you’ve got a really tough season, when you’ve got awful fire-weather conditions, so when you’re running fires under severe, extreme or worse conditions, hazard reduction has very little effect at all....
- ABC News Breakfast, 8 January, 2020
Another key argument sparked by a story in The Australian has been that arson is to blame:
Firebugs fuelling crisis as arson arrest toll hits 183
- The Australian, 7 January, 2020
That claim in early January, with the inferno at its height, was picked up by the Murdochs’ London Sun, tweeted in America by Donald Trump Jr, rehashed by the Murdochs’ Fox News star Sean Hannity on his website and promoted on Fox as the real cause of the fires: 
TOMI LAHREN: … So I hate to break it to the Greta Thunbergs of the world ... 
...the fact of the matter is this: Australia has an arson problem you can’t pin on global warming, climate change, or whatever title you’re giving your environmental boogeyman these days.
- Final Thought with Tomi Lahren, Fox Nation, 10 January, 2020
Arson is a part of the bushfire story, of course, but the key issue is not what started the fires but why they’ve burned so fiercely.
And The Australian’s figures were wrong, because not all of those 183 arrests were for arson. Many included offences like breaching a fire ban or tossing a cigarette.
And 43 of the arrests came before the bushfire season started.
But there was plenty more online.
Like this Facebook post from PragerU, a conservative American video producer, which used the original Australian article to claim that 200 arsonists had been arrested and that arson was responsible for 50 per cent of the fires.
Those claims were wrong and the video’s now been flagged as false by Facebook.
But not before it was seen by 2 million people.
So, who is PragerU? It was set up 11 years ago by a conservative talk-show host, with funding from two Texan, evangelical, fracking billionaires. It now spends millions of dollars a year to spread conservative information, or in this case misinformation.  
But the arson beat up was not just on Facebook, it was also trending on Twitter where the hashtag #arsonemergency was being spread by an army of bots, as the BBC explains:
ROS ATKINS: One researcher analysed over 300 accounts using this hashtag. He found a third of them displayed highly-automated and inauthentic behaviour, meaning they could be bots or trolls and he concluded: ‘The conspiracy theories going around, (including arson as the main cause of the fires) reflect an increased distrust in expertise and scepticism in the media.
- BBC Outside Source, 9 January, 2020
So who is commanding this bot army?
QUT’s Professor Tim Graham, told Media Watch there was no evidence of them being run by a single controller, but their aim was clear: 
… the evidence indicates that (fringe) right-wing accounts around the globe have ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ to push and promote the narrative of #ArsonEmergency to counter the #ClimateEmergency narrative. 
- Email, Professor Tim Graham, Queensland University of Technology, 23 January, 2020
So was arson actually responsible for any of the big fires?
On 9 January, Victorian Police said no:
“… there is no intelligence to indicate that the fires in East Gippsland and north-east Victoria have been caused by arson or any other suspicious behaviour”...
- The Age, 9 January, 2020
And according to the ABC, which crunched the numbers in mid-January:
Only about 1 per cent of the land burnt in NSW this bushfire season can be officially attributed to arson … 
- ABC News, 18 January, 2020
Adding:
NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) Inspector Ben Shepherd said earlier this week lightning was predominantly responsible for the bushfire crisis.
- ABC News, 18 January, 2020
Despite that, The Australian’s firebug beat up remains on its website with the headline virtually unchanged.
But as the political storm over the fires continues, News Corp is perhaps showing small signs of movement.  
After James Murdoch’s criticism, the NT News declared on its front page:
Now is the time to discuss climate change.
- NT News, 16 January, 2020
And a few days earlier, The Australian conceded in this editorial: 
More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science.
- The Weekend Australian, 11 January, 2020
And even Andrew Bolt has flirted with that idea, telling viewers last week: 
ANDREW BOLT: I can understand some people saying, ‘Oh look I think global warming did play a big role in these fires’. I don’t personally believe it, or I think the role is minor if anything, but I can believe it.
- The Bolt Report, 29 January, 2020
Is that real change or just lip service? We’ll have to wait and see. 
There’s no doubt that climate change activists across the world think the fires should be a tipping point.  
And many Australians agree, with 72 per cent of respondents to an Australia Institute poll last month saying the fires should be a wake-up call to the world. 
January’s IPSOS Monitor also shows a huge spike in concern over the environment, with it showing as the most important issue for the first time ever.
Add to that, last week, climate protests in Sydney by a couple of hundred so-called Quiet Australians.
And more than twice that number of people lying outside News Corp, with banners saying, News Corp lies all the time so it’s OK for us to lie here. 
So, what’s News Corp’s answer to this chorus of criticism? It told us in a statement: 
We publish hundreds of columnists across multiple mastheads and magazines, websites and  television and other platforms. These represent a wide range of views, opinions and positions on a range of topics. You identify a handful of columnists to suit your own agenda. To suggest, as Media Watch is doing, that on major issues in Australia there cannot be many opinions aired across media platforms is contrary to the role of free and open media.
- Email, News Corp Australia spokesperson, 3 February, 2020
We don’t suggest that for a moment.  
Our point is that News Corp’s star columnists, whom the group heavily promotes, all sing from the same song sheet on climate change. 
And that matters. Because it stops the debate from moving on.  
The Science Media Centre told Media Watch that having influential voices which do not reflect the science: 
… creates confusion, uncertainty and apathy among the public, even when the science is quite clear.
- Email, The Australian Science Media Centre, 30 January, 2020
Rupert Murdoch assured shareholders last year there are no climate change deniers at News Corp. 
But sadly, that is just not true. 
And here in Australia its most strident voices show no sign of piping down.
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