Keane and Telstra:

David Mortimer writes: Re. “High fliers at the core of the Telstra shareholder revolt” (yesterday, item 3). On just about every issue, Bernard Keane and myself are diametrically opposed. No need to be on all occasions, but the polemic he uses just makes it so. So it is with his comments about “…Australia’s richest people, backed by our cartel-like banking sector, pushing their own interests, even when the evidence is that structural separation might indeed be, if not the ‘win-win’. ”

The group he refers to are loathe to be involved in interfering in the running of companies they invest in. Pity it is so, since they could be a very powerful force in wresting back the focus of management to making money for shareholders and in reducing executive largess. But now they are incensed, as all Australians should be, not about the benefits or disbenefits of structural separation, but about the manner the Government is employing to achieve it.

The ends do not justify the means. This is a very shabby and frightening action by arrogant thugs.

Avril Clark writes: I am an individual “mum” Telstra shareholder and I have been absolutely outraged by the government’s piratical approach to this matter. I have been so outraged that I have written many times since the announcements to Conroy, Rudd, Minchin, the investment funds Bernard cited (applauding their action), Joyce, Xenophon, Fielding, Telstra, The Australian, The SMH, The Intelligent Investor and the Australian Shareholders Association.

As an individual there is not much more I can do. That however does not mean that I am not furious about the matter.

I therefore resent your slack and lazy approach to just assuming that the small shareholder isn’t concerned with this matter. I would have expected a bit more from your publication. After all isn’t it Stephen Mayne who is always on about shareholders speaking out about matters that concern them.

Here is a prime example of an ego that has got so big that he and obviously his editorial staff don’t see the small shareholders clamouring about them. I wasn’t at the Telstra AGM yesterday (I live interstate) but that doesn’t mean that I don’t read the papers and know that other small shareholders are vitally concerned as well as me. Hooray for the institutions that representing small investors spoke up about this matter!

I’m disgusted with Crikey…

Justin Templer writes: Disgruntled Telstra shareholders, including sophisticated fund managers, seem to believe that they have been betrayed by the government and should either be compensated for the loss of value in Telstra shares in the face of its pending dismemberment or that their interests should otherwise be somehow supported by the taxpayer.

It seems strange that these shareholders had no regard for the high regulatory risk attaching to Telstra shares — this despite constant publicity around Telstra’s aggressively monopolistic behaviour and precarious position within an industry renowned for its exposure to changes in the regulatory environment.

Peel another onion.

Detention centres:

Cian Manton, Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokeswoman, writes:  Re. “Tough new restrictions on visits to detention centres” (yesterday, item 13). I can assure your readers the only thing new about visiting arrangements to immigration detention centres is the name of the service provider.

The requirement to give 24 hours’ notice of a visit has been a long-standing arrangement in place for a number of years and, depending on individual circumstances, this requirement can be waived. We request that people give at least 24 hours’ notice to ensure the safety and good order of the facility as well as recognising that people in detention have rights to their privacy and are.

Indeed, among other administrative reasons, advance notice ensures people are available at the time of the proposed visit and that they consent to it taking place.

The food industry:

Kate Carnell, Chief Executive of the Australian Food and Grocery Council, writes: Re. “Reform the food industry — for the sake of the planet” (Tuesday, item 16). Food industry activist Rosemary Stanton’s latest diatribe on food policy is riddled with errors.

For a start, AFGC has not called for food manufacturing to be exempt from an emission trading scheme. We have simply called for food manufacturing in Australia to be treated in the same way as in the USA and Europe, where it’s proposed to safeguard industry until other trading nations are subjected to the same carbon costs.

Under the current CPRS legislation in Australia, people are more likely to buy cheaper imported goods because home-grown manufactured food and groceries are expected to rise on supermarket shelves by as much as five per cent as a result of increase power charge in Australia.

Goods imported from countries in Asia would not be affected as they are unlikely to be subjected to a carbon charge in the foreseeable future.

Also, it’s not as if the food manufacturing sector is a major contributor to carbon emissions. The food processing industry — Australia’s largest manufacturing sector employing 315,000 people — is responsible for no more than two per cent of Australia’s total carbon emissions.

Ms Stanton’s recommendation for Australia to import more food from countries that don’t have the clean, green and safe credentials that Australia does — for no environmental benefit makes no sense! Given Ms Stanton has got this so wrong, it brings into doubt the credibility of the rest of her assertions.

Melbourne University:

Christina Buckridge, Manager, Corporate Affairs, University of Melbourne, writes: Re. “Ill will across Melbourne uni claims another victim” (Tuesday, item 5). Andrew Crook cavalierly claims in his article that “A damning survey showed 40% of VCA staff would quit their positions rather than deal with further rationalisation directives from new dean Sharman Pretty. At the same meeting, 84% of staff expressed a vote of no-confidence in Pretty”.

To set the record straight:

  • The meeting referred to in the statement was held on 14 October 2009 and organised by the “SAVE VCA” campaign. The University understands it was an informal gathering of approximately 40 staff members — which is approximately 20-25% of the Faculty of the VCA and Music (VCAM) staff members in total.
  • The views of staff in attendance at this particular meeting are not representative of the views of all VCAM staff.
  • No poll has been taken or other survey conducted of all VCAM staff on the subject matter of Dean Pretty’s leadership.

Given that the phrase “84% of staff expressed a vote of no-confidence in Pretty” is factually incorrect and potentially defamatory to Professor Pretty, these facts should be noted.

Copenhagen:

Greg Angelo writes: Re. “Copenhagen reality check #1: 25% by 2020 isn’t in the ball park” (yesterday, item 10). Having reviewed the current draft of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) otherwise known as the Copenhagen Treaty I have some misgivings about potential commitments from both a financial and governance perspective.

The draft treaty states in part that “the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties” … “shall appoint a board” to manage the financial mechanism and the related facilitative mechanism”.

The document goes on to state that “Mandatory contributions from developed country Parties and other developed Parties “should form the core revenue stream for meeting the cost of adaptation”,  and that “Assessed contributions of at least 0.7% of the annual GDP of developed country Parties” shall be payable, “taking into account historical contribution to concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere”.

Signing the treaty in its current form would commit $7 billion per annum to an unelected body with countries like Zimbabwe and North Korea having equal votes whilst contributing virtually nothing. What is the Government’s position on this matter? I am struggling to find any concrete reference to Australia’s position and would ask the Kevin Rudd and Penny Wong to publically clarify our position as a matter of urgency.

The Global CCS Institute:

Chandran Vigneswaran from the Global CCS Institute writes: Re. “CCS Institute comes clean on clean coal” (30 October, item 11). Michael James criticises the Global CCS Institute’s report for not including two particular plants in its list of seven operational CCS plants worldwide.

The operating plants that were listed were only those that were considered to be large scale projects, the definition of which required a threshold of sequestering over 1 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. At the time of data collection the Mountaineer project was intending to capture 100,000 tonnes of CO2 per annum and the Schwarze Pumpe project is operating at the same level.

Both of these projects are included in the full database which includes in total 275 projects and are important stepping stones to the deployment of CCS to full scale power plant operations.

A killer blow:

Edward Thompson writes: Re. Geoff Russell (yesterday, comments) and boxing analogies: Historically, if there is a knockout in the first round of a boxing match, it ends.

Climate change (enter the Crikey climate change match if you dare!):

Michael R. James writes: Re. “In climate denial: this is not scepticism” (yesterday, item 9). Bernard Keane pointed us to George Monbiot’s examination of what drives climate change denialism.

Slightly cringe-making in Monbiot’s article was that prominent amongst his cast of lead purveyors of denialism were Australians, like Clive James (well, sometime Australian) and Ian Plimer*. (I have previously speculated that in the case of Plimer (geologist), Bob Carter (marine geologist) and a few other prominent denialists it appears that geologists in particular harbour a ferocious professional entitlement and resentment of other scientists, especially biologists not to mention anthropologists like Tim Flannery, impinging on what they see as their territory.)

There may be something to Monbiot’s ageist theory for these denialist types, but for many of our prominent hometown denialists there is a simpler explanation and for which we should thank Monbiot in providing a non-libelous label, as follows.

At my research institute we often discuss whether these people, such as Plimer, Andrew Blot and Planet Janet are “people with room-temperature IQs” or just amoral provocateurs out for a cheap score that also happens to fit with their ideological agenda. Given that Plimer, Blot and PlanetJ are laughing all the way to the bank, I think the evidence is clear enough, though scientifically speaking this is not mutually exclusive with the luke-warm-IQ or ageist theories.

PS. Did others notice that Blot’s latest evidence from the University of East Bumcrack, presented on Insiders, that the year “after which the earth has not cooled” has shifted from 1998 to 2001? Next week will it be 2004? Nice to be able to cherrypick your data and timepoints to prove your argument. I think he must have also been reading Plimer’s book which Stephen Luntz in Crikey called “a farrago of cherry-picking, distortion and outright lies”.

*Monbiot has labelled Plimer an “author of a marvellous concatenation of gibberish called Heaven and Earth “. Crikey readers may also remember Guy Rundle explaining how Plimer backed out of a public debate with Monbiot proposed by the Spectator.

Ken Lambert writes: Bernard Keane needs to read through the 900+ posts on the famous Crikey Climate Change Cage Fight — he might learn something. The Economist seems to tolerate a sceptical AGW argument favoured by Tamas Calderwood and myself. You know how difficult it is to get a letter published in The Economist. Its letters page this week contains a letter from retired professor of physics Horst-Joachim Luedecke.

It has sent AGW jihadist blog sites into a frenzy. It quotes the Mojib Latif recent research from University of Kiel. Bernard’s favourite bloggist Monbiot hoped to head off at the pass this Latif cooling prediction by claiming that good old global warming will be resumed after a multi-decadal (more than 20 year) cooling period.

More importantly though is the bloodily established Cage Fight fact that long term temperature trends cannot be sustained by even large regional oscillations such as the ENSO and AMO (or NAO).

One reasonably astute layman may wonder how indeed a climate artefact such as the ENSO, AMO or NAO can overwhelm the IPCC’s global CO2 GHG induced 1.6+ W/sq.m heat-up power for 20 years or more.

So simple question Bernard — where is all that IPCC “heat imbalance’” going over that significant 20 year+ period without showing a global temperature increase on planet Earth?

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