Does not rehire any previous board level appointees
Story submitted by Eric Worrall
The Australian government has decided to not renew any of the management board of the Australian CSIRO. Naturally, outgoing board members are not very happy with the decision. According to Simon McKeon, outgoing chairman of the CSIRO;
“There appears to be a “brutal” rule that directors of federal government agencies appointed under Labor will not get another term, the outgoing CSIRO chairman Simon McKeon has said.
“The reality is that, yes, there is a rule that no one on the board of a federal government agency has been reappointed,” McKeon said when asked about the Labor board appointees at an Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD) function on Thursday. “It’s an issue that many people are finding worrying.”
McKeon, whose term as the CSIRO chairman ends in June, said it was not about him.
“The great majority of people who put up their hands to serve on a federal government agency are really doing it for the nation,” he said. “All I’m saying is we’re missing out on the corporate memory.
“It’s, I would argue, an unnecessary distraction to what’s already a very challenging bunch of organisations.”
Nobody is saying why the government appears to have taken a hard line on the non renewal of previous political appointments. In America it is normal for political appointments to be replaced by an incoming government. This is less common in Australia.
It is possible that McKeon’s outspoken views on climate change may have contributed to differences between the CSIRO board, and the more skeptical Australian government. According to his Wikipedia entry, Simon McKeon appears to be strongly in favour of more funding for climate research.
“On climate change, McKeon has expressed his desire to see the topic raised to the top of both the “political and public agenda”. He said “We may not have all the answers to what is occurring, … [b]ut the point is, why wouldn’t one take out very strong insurance to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being?”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_McKeon#Climate_change
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Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Amen
Not Amen, Alberte, Hallelujah!
It seems to me that when an elected government is replaced by another elected government; even if it is the same government, elected for a new term, that ALL NON-ELECTED government appointees aka beaurocrats should tender their resignations at the end of the outgoing government’s term.
Of course, the New Government should be entirely free to re-appoint any or none or all of those termed out beaurocrats should they choose to do so.
After all, they are mostly political appointments; and those positions should be held by persons that the incoming Government believes will better serve the country as they see it.
So if you consider yourself invaluable to your country; then prove it by tendering your resignation at the end of your appointing government’s term in office.
g
Exactly, george. McKeon whines:
“The great majority of people who put up their hands to serve on a federal government agency are really doing it for the nation,”
Plenty of others have ‘put up their hands to serve’. McKeon had his chance. Now he needs to go away.
He wasn’t “doing it for the nation” either. He was doing for his own self-aggrandizement. ‘The nation’ is better off without him.
This is one viewpoint: the other one, traditionally held in Britain, is that the role of non-elected officials is to provide dispassionate advice to politicians of any political colour in the interests of the country they serve.
The reality is that there are advantages and disadvantages to both systems. When you have officials of the same political persuasion, the checks and balances tend to disappear in a smorgasbord of the mutual admiration and back-patting societies. In the British System, the tendency is for the non-elected officials to serve their own selfish interests more professionally than those of the country whose taxes pays for their lives of riley.
“The great majority of people who put up their hands to serve on a federal government agency are really doing it for the nation,”
More likely the great majority of government “climate scientists” are not “putting up their” hands to serve, but rather “putting out their hands” to receive a research grant. When the research starts considering both sides of a question the results may be worth the public tax revenues.
In Canada, the majority of the “public Service” institutions and ministries were created by the Liberal Party and are partisan. I hope the current Federal government will take not of the Australian example.
Great words George, lets see if that Twit Trigg would have the courage to resign, it is an act of political bastardry for one Government to put in place a person whose only job is to undermine the next Government, takes the ALP to do that. N
@hunter, I am not sure but is this bunch the same group that tried to unseat TA about 3 weeks ago? And if so (actually no matter what) nice move TA.. Between TA and Harper up in Canada those are two guys that show some guts!
Could it be that the untruthfulness of the assertion by CSIRO Chairman Simon McKeon-that no agency directors who were appointed by the previous government have been reappointed- indicates the reason McKeon has not been reappointed?
GISS could use a house cleaning too. History may look different without Gavin’s thumb on the scale.
Another reason to admire the Aussies! Well done, T.A.
Indeed!
I hope that Australians realize that their government has done them a great service.
I hope so too, they are certainly leading the way in trimming the global warming scam.
I think I might emigrate. Our UK Political Party Muppeteers of all ilks with the exception of UKIP, have all signed away their credibility this week in support of a”climate change” agenda.
Good on ya Auuussstraaalia! ya Beauties.
Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and is reported to have said “The die is cast” but not in Latin, but in Greek.
Does anyone one else take CSIRO’s logo to look like they have put the entire continent in jail?
Yes, good observation 😉
The simple explanation for such a logo is a so called “Freudian slip”.
The logo expresses the unconscious wishes of the now rightly sacked green CSIRO leaders. That is to say, they wanted the whole population of Oz to be inmates of their “ideal” would-be eco-dictatorship…
Do we know if Freud actually wore a slip?
Oh great, now I’ve got an image of Freud wearing a slip stuck in my head. Thanks a lot Alberts.
I thought it might be ‘divide and conquer’ symbology.
To me it appears like a nice steak, or skewers, on a grill?
(could be a biased view, my wife has us both on diets)
Paul, March 6, 2015 at 1:03 pm
Do go for the 5-2 diet.
Two days of serious restriction of your intake to 600 calories.
Five days of eat/drink whatever you were eating/drinking before.
Even steak and cheesey vegetables.
Don’t compensate, and you will lose weight – guaranteed.
Auto
My advice on the diet, do what you have been told since school. Eat a balanced diet and exercise a lot. This only fails when you are are not strictly following it.
If you’re going to be lazy, minimise processed foods with trans fats (eg. toasted muesli, biscuits), eat your three serves of fruit (with skin, not juice) and do some exercise first thing in the morning. Its not good enough to be a supermodel but you can enjoy your food and not big become a big fat bastard (if you already are, you might need to do more). Do not skip the steak. It makes the veggies taste good and if you eat some carbs with it, you’re less likely to get hungry later and snacking on processed foods is worse.
You need a little humor to help you:
From the amazing Steve Goodman “Chicken Cordon Blues”
Maybe just made for the future. Once the Antarctic ice starts to melt, they can keep adding “blue” to the logo showing Australia being submerged by Mann-made CO2 global warming causing sea level rise.
“Does anyone one else take CSIRO’s logo to look like they have put the entire continent in jail?”
Australia started as a penal conoly. This is the original Australian flag. (I suppose)
You mis- spelt Connolley
I was thinking it’s a tire track? Perhaps an offroader…
Australia was colonized by England as a strategic move against the expansion of other European Powers, particularly France.
This was discovered in Intelligence documents uncovered around a decade ago.
For the record USA got just as many convicts as Australia due to the ongoing famine in Europe in those days and that’s why over %90 of those transported were convicted of stealing food.
Not South Australia, We’re free settlers.
CSIRO, does that stand for C ould S eriously I nsult R eal O bervers?
Well not really we just wouldn’t let them into New Zealand, because they all talk funny.
Like; ” A bisin is something you wash your ficein.”
But any way, I am on my way in just a day or two to go there to Melbin, and I will personally call the PM and tell him; Jolly good show mate. Excuse me I forgot they’re Oztralians; make that “Bloody good show Mate !”
g
[The mods point out that no Midwestern US cowboy would “wash his face under a bison before he goes into the office” … And any Ozzie recommending he do so would lose his place in line at the nearest Outback Steakhouse. .mod]
“If there’s no room to jail ya
They’d send you to Australia!”
that is one of the worst logos ever!!
Australians looking out through their prison bars….
When the current logo was introduced, the seven bars represented the (then) seven Divisions within the CSIRO. It’s over 10 years since I left, and I’ve no idea how many Divisions they have now. To me it always looked like a blue cricket ball with seven rows of stitching, one that’s going to seam all over the place.
A House Divided?
It is said that the vertical lines represent the 7 days of the week. The previous logo was similar and it was also said the size of the ‘white bit’ (now represented by the Australian continent) was how much work got done on the day.
Praise be that this once great organization can now maybe return to doing what it’s good at, and that’s research for a better and more productive world. The time and resources wasted on AGW can be used as they were meant to be used, for the good of mankind.
Woo Hoo! Go Tony!! Glad to see the broom put through the CSIRO – they had lost the way spouting nothing but CAGW diatribe – now, back to business!!
Don’t celebrate too soon. Abbott needs to put the same broom through the BOM and the universities too. The Oz global warming establishment is like a snake with many heads. While ever one head lives, the beast will survive. This is only the beginning of the beginning of the end.
You have to have some idea of what the future holds in order to do any sensible future-proofing. You can’t future proof against everything.
We probably can’t future proof against anything. Given humanity’s inability to learn from the mistakes of the past (Near and Far), there is little probability that people in the future will do better. It seems only death ends stupid.
Even death doesn’t end stupid. With the writings and organizations put in place by stupid, stupid can continue for generation after generation. This can be proven by the fact that there are still neo-Nazis.
Wish they would do the same to the ABC down here. Chuck the Managing Director out with them too …
This would be really an advisable thing to do for Tony Abbot in order to survive politically. Daily you can observe in the ABC news the subtle but very distinct propaganda-war of the ABC journalists against the Abbot Government. I guess, one of the biggest motives for these constant attacks is Abbots skeptical position about CAGW and the left’s quasi religious “crusade” against CO2 (a very valuable and beneficial gas by the way, which is essential for plants and a condition for a greener outback in Oz…).
this item made my day!!
and yes its bloody brilliant!
fully agree re aunty ABC getting a purge too
r williams as first OUT
todays science show featured whining mikey(podcast available radio national)
I had to leave the room before I damaged something
the budget cuts didnt work
they kept the old glued on biased has beens and dissed the programs the people want the most
only so many hrs of book reviews arts and greenspew one can take.
Yes it’s pretty hard for the Helmsman to steer the ship to port when all the crew are dragging their oars on the starboard.
The ABC pollygreens might have finally got the message..The sacking of the CSIRO is a big wake-up call for them..
Unfortunately the biased journalists and their management in the ABC firmly believe they are untouchable and have free reign to waste taxpayers’ money disseminating their own beliefs. Of course they will scream blue murder when the axe finally falls as it inevitably must. If they take sides politically they must bear the consequences.
These are concrete actions which I applaud. Now for a new board, that will conduct serious examination of past funding, the recipients, the stated deliverables, the actual results, and the review process of projects.
I guess I would like to see a witch hunt. YES I would. I would like to see all the witches and snake oil salesmen who have poisoned the science, the politics with ad hominem attacks held to account and prosecuted for fraud.
I do not know the level of influence the CSIRO may have with the crown attorney or the justice minister but it seems reasonable that we should start with an inquiry. We know where to look for fraud. Rhe so-called 97% of Australian climate scientists.
Let us see if their science can withstand real scrutiny!
‘missing corporate memory’? He wouldn’t be referring to the adjustments made to the temperature data, would he.
Somebody help me with Australian politics. I thought Tony Abbot was on the ropes? (I assume it is Abbot who would make this decision). What does this suggest about Abbot’s security as PM?
He is down in the opinion polls but is actually going up in popularity at the moment. Latest I heard he’s about 47 53 in two party preferred. I am not sure he is too worried about being elected again
Ah, The Abbott government look like they are turning the poles around.
They were loosing their base and also a lot of swinging voters because they were pandering to the far-left way too much.
Recent decisions and actions show that they may have realised that that is NOT what the people want, and the polls are swinging back 49-51 was the latest.
Last polls have been 47-53 and 49-51 which suggests he has at least recovered from 43-57.
A couple of weeks ago we saw a concerted attempt by sections of the media and ‘unnamed sources’ to get him rolled by left wing favorite Turnbull. That was when he got the 51-49 result.
If you look back through Australian political history, 47 to 53 mid term generally results in the incumbent party being returned to government. New governements generally make unpopular decisions early on, then vote buying sweeteners later on so they get another 3 years. It takes a long time for a real change in government.
Why haven’t I ever been asked by a pollster who I would vote for? Go Tony!
It is vital to secure your poles if you have a loose base.
Abbott is a fighter, make no mistake. Yes the sycophants and ratbags have been sniping away at him, but you don’t get a double blue from Oxford without being able to throw a good straight (at the) LEFT.
Left lead, right cross, hard left to the “mary carelli” then the big right uppercut – good night sunshine, sleep tight!
“ratbags…double blue from Oxford…throw a good straight…hard left to the “mary carelli” ”
Can someone translate this to Yankee, please?
Ratbag is a trouble maker or despicable person. In this case the climate worriers have been caught out tampering with data for political reasons.
Double Blue is an English term for representing Oxford or other universities in 2 sporting teams at the highest level. Abbot represented Oxford at Boxing twice. Once I believe was in beating the European Champion over 15 rounds. He was also a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
Straight left is a boxing term for a straight punch thrown by the left hand.
So the Left have sniped at him for the way he walks and numerous other puerile things that have nothing to do with policy.
He was recorded as saying off record that climate change is crap, so the left have been on his case about that. He introduced his Direct Action with help from Dr Christine Jones about building up organic carbon in the soil which has the dual purpose of building soil fertility and recognizes farmers efforts and also reduces the warmist roar about emissions trading rorts (schemes) to a dull roar.
The warmists totally ignored farming as a source of absorbing CO2. When you deliberately ignore one of your most important assets in the carbon cycle, then it is a scam.
The ‘left media’ undertook what we call a ‘verballing’ of Tony Abbott in an attempt to get him replaced with their own favorite, but has now backfired. They have always underestimated Tony Abbott, and it has hurt them when he replaced Turnbull a few years ago. Their ideological followers took it further on Facebook and Twitter, the shouting became quite obnoxious, so the ‘coup’ attempt was seen by the rest for what it was, a media beat-up.
I agree,Tom. The best way to sow the seeds of disunity is to have the party wonder just who were the blackballers in the secret ballot who wanted TA out. A clever and orchestrated beatup all the same that must have some members wondering who the dissenters are in their midst. .
All of these people below should suffer audits on very public penny they received. I want to know how much was spent on resort junkets, public relations and marketing, integration with the IPCC, dinners, pencils, parking fees. And how much on hardware, publications, & research.
Nathan Bindoff
Matthew England
Dave Griggs
Ann Henderson-Sellers
Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
Lesley Hughes
Roger Jones
David Karoly
Tony McMichael
Neville Nicholls
Jean Palutikof
Andy Pitman
Will Steffen
Chris Turney
Why throw good money after bad?
You can have endless inquiries and reports etc. All that does is give these people a soapbox to stand on. Better to move on with damnatio memoriae of this lot than to continually dwell on them.
It will be good PR to make a show trial of the excesses. If only Joe McCarthy was still alive and in Oz. Since now we know that Joe McCarthy was right, I wasn’t at all being sarcastic.
Didn’t Chris Turney’s Ship of Fools adventure get its own audit in the millions? He got an award for it but I don’t recall what the citation verbiage was that went with it. It would have been up for the Darwin Award if he had gone down with his party. http://www.darwinawards.com/
Yes, I am pretty sure that he was the science faker who made the case that the ill-fated publicity stunt, costing millions, was scientifically meritorious. He should be in jail for that stunt. In jail and made to pay it all back. And who authorized it? Gad Zooks that was a debacle.
“He should be in jail for that stunt. In jail and made to pay it all back.”
No! He’s worked wonders for skeptics. We need MORE government scientists like him, the ridiculouser the better. Also, it was a riot.
appoint a good auditor – they will have it out in the open very quickly whilst the new board can get on with the real work of the CSIRO.
From the article:
I’d love to hear from our commenters from down under; what value have Australians received from the money already spent on climate research? Anything? Maybe a little? Owed all the money back plus a penalty?
What value have we received? We’ve had a lot of money wasted on garbage research, that could have been spent on any number of worthwhile projects. So absolutely no value whatsoever.
Considering that “climate research” has diverted money and attention away from actual environmental issues we need to deal with, there has been no value whatsoever.
Well, the CSIRO invented the now ubiquitous Wi-Fi.
I’d be much happier if they spent my tax money on something equally worthwhile.
“What have the Romans ever done for us?”
h/t Monty Python
Very true however, will never make up for the introduction of the cane toad in 1935 when the CSIRO was called CSRO.
Actually CSIRO didn’t “invent Wi-Fi”.
It just got lucky with a few of the many pieces of IP that has gone into the development of Wi-Fi.
You should never believe the CSIRO’s PR machine. The “big lie” is its standard mode of operation. It should patent it.
You might, however, believe some of its ex-scientists who say things like this in regard to CSIRO’s gagging of climate scientists:
” “The scientists, if they were allowed to speak freely, would be able to inform the Australian public fully. The
scientists are basically trustworthy. There is contested evidence and contested truths here, therefore you need open discussion and debate. The CSIRO is pretending there is one truth most of the time and that truth is being controlled by senior management.”
“CSIRO in bed with big coal”, Brisbane Times & Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Jul 2010
https://pitchinporkies.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/listing-of-public-information-on-csiro-3-bullying-and-intimidation-censorship-of-the-professional-views-of-scientists.pdf
Quite a bit of entertainment, the Turney Ship of Fools was comedy gold – but the ticket price for the live show is way too expensive.
‘Increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) have helped boost green foliage across the world’s arid regions over the past 30 years through a process called CO2 fertilisation, according to CSIRO research.’
http://www.csiro.au/Portals/Media/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2.aspx
Thanks for the responses Nick, pete, Raven, Patrick, Sceptical Sam, Eric Worrall, and lee.
Sounds like they might owe ya’ll your money back, with interest.
Well done
And the gravy train starts to run dry…
Looking forward to what happens at the BOM next.
Ditto!
Yes, it will be very interesting to see what happens at the BOM. I think the Chief Scientists Office has got a lot to answer for also.
This is exactly the question which needs to be discussed. If the cost of insurance exceeds a reasonable estimate of the loss, you don’t buy insurance. The whole point of insurance (from the purchaser’s perspective) is to accept the certainty of an affordable expense to avoid the risk of an unaffordable one. Accepting the certainty of a very large expense to avoid an unproven and unquantified loss at some distant future time is not buying insurance; it’s appeasing superstition.
Overstating either the likelihood or the cost of some insurable risk is a tactic of the insurance seller.
Why shouldn’t one wear a tin foil helmet to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being?
Eugene WR Gallun
Greenie Ozzie asks “why wouldn’t one take out very strong insurance…”
Simple… because the premium is more than the worst case loss
So you’d be silly to buy the insurance 🙂
The best insurance is always to build solid, reliable infrastructure.
In the energy area….wind turbines, and solar… need not apply !
to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being?
=================
the state cannot eliminate risk without eliminating freedom of choice. otherwise, ultimately the state would lock each of us away in a cage as insurance against doing future harm.
why wouldn’t one take out very strong insurance to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being?
What if the future is a new ice age, hmmmm?
“… why wouldn’t one take out very strong insurance to at least do what we can to future-proof our well-being?”
That begs the question of how one knows the future, or if it can be known, short of witnessing it. It presumes a great deal.
CSIRO’s R&D work in mineral processing has been superb and the country is the better for it. The jump onto the AGW bandwagon was politically driven and the folks at the top had to go: good riddance to each and every one of these gormless sycophants.
Well said.
If CSIRO had stuck to agriculture and other technical processes, instead of jumping on the climate alarmist bandwagon, they would have put a whole heap back into Australian prosperity, …
instead, they became a drag on development and a waste of time and resources..
even the ag got shafted to big green! research into soils and standard plants not gmo needs be restored. why the no gm stance?
because ALL the tampered ones are based ON normal salt n dry tolerant species , be far saner to crossbreed them in standard mode. and no bloody patents to big agri
This.
I also suggested to the Education Minister that we shouldn’t be funding the Penguin Counters. I am sick of our taxes being wasted on people to do some ridiculous exercise and count penguins or measure starfish as proof of gerbil worming.
Good, I thought the Oz government was beginning to lighten up on their original resolve. Labor stuffed all these agencies with ideologues all around the world. It is a remarkable sight to see Europe still slanging away at curbing CO2 emissions with as halt in warming longer than the warming we were all so exercised over. Natural variability now would appear to have been responsible for half the apparent warming (more if you count climateers’ heavy thumbs on the scales. And of course any continuance of cooling will reduce what CO2s contribution could possibly be. Another 10 years and it will pretty much have all been natural variability.
I don’t know much about UKIP, but if they can present a face of reason (usually new parties virtually forced into existence by the extreme nuttiness and collaboration of the status quo parties will have their ‘over the top’ contingent) and restrain extremist members, they have an opportunity right now that shouldn’t be missed. Harper in Canada managed a split of Conservatives into pink Tories and hang-em-high fundamentalists from out west who wouldn’t be attractive to the majority. He cleaned up the party and made it presentable. He is also one of the few economist heads of state and is roundly hated at home and abroad by the left, UN (another left), etc for managing to keep Canada (almost alone in the world) safe from a deep durable recession.
We had UN Marxists coming over to Canada to make speeches against Harper policies; the UN rejected Canada’s bid to be on the Security Council; the EU was outraged by Harper’s lecturing to them on what they had to do vastly differently to rescue their economies (there still is a colonial bigotry that will never die). So we knew that Harper was on the right track. The big joke is the exchange rate on the Canadian dollar vs reeling Euro and GBP states. The ‘institutions’ and possibly Soros must be paying heavily to keep the CDN$ down. But, hey, the low buck suits us fine. When the XL pipeline is okayed by the next administration, we will be getting 25% premium for our oil and reviving our competitive industries.
.
When australians stop smiling, start running.
And we have all lost our sense of humour about the climate change gravy train.
What climate change?? According to the data, the temperature is the same as 417 years ago. It’s also the same, actually a little under 1934. But the same as 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and what do you know, also the same as 2014.
So where is that climate change? Where?
The only changes is in the adjusted data, thanks to NOAA and MoB etc. The only way they can make it look like it is changing, is by cheating. That is called fraud, cost a lot of money and kills a lot of people. Those frauds should, and hopefully will, go to jail!
Now to make sure they don’t get hired into other government positions in lieu of the scientists and skeptics that were removed from their positions due their views. The egregiously nasty ones need to be vilified openly and brought to light. Turnabout is fair play and examples should go a long way to restoring the credibility of science. Yes I’m bitter at how people lost their lively hood and reputation based on lies, innuendos, and politics.
Enter your comment here…”lively hood” should be “livelihood”
sorry about that. I hope that that helps.
Would that that be a redundancy I wonder? If one loses one’s livelihood would that also count as a redundancy? And, if people were to loose their livelihoods? What would that be?
Wonderful isn’t it; the English language.
Well done, Tony Abbott!!
Australia is leading the world in the right direction!