Dr. Jennifer Marohasy writes in an email:
Peter Ridd’s woes began after he did an interview with Alan Jones on Sky Television last August. To be precise the interview was on 2 August and it was in part to promote the book I had edited ‘Climate Change, The Facts 2017’.
Alan Jones was so pleased with how it all went he emailed me the next day, and also sent off a letter to the Minister Josh Frydenberg – complaining about the Bureau of Meteorology and the lack of integrity in the recording of cold temperatures.
While Alan Jones was very pleased with the interview, the management at James Cook University was upset. So, upset it censored Peter. Peter immediately contacted the Union – his Union, the National Tertiary Education Union. They weren’t very helpful – he had brought it all on himself.
Then John Roskam helped Peter get some proper legal advice and we – and by we, I mean you as a reader of this occasional newsletter – got behind a serious fundraising campaign to support the legal effort. Together, we have helped Peter Ridd raise AU$260,000.
Your contribution to this campaign has made a difference!
Many of you not only contributed money, but also forwarded my emails, some of you to everyone on your email list. This also brought in tremendous support – and money. Thank you!
In fact, so impressive has been our campaign – joined by the networks that support Anthony Watts, Joanne Nova and Benny Peiser – that even Peter’s Union now want to support him.
My mother has always said: success brings its own success.
Late yesterday, the National Tertiary Education Union (Peter’s Union) put out a media release explaining that:
“It is ironic in the extreme that JCU management appear to have been trying to protect the reputation of the University and bodies like the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Given the nature of the (entirely predictable) extensive media coverage, all management have done is to feed a right-wing media narrative that universities are conformist and actively suppress heterodox views on topics such as climate change.
“A university, even a relatively young one such as JCU should have the courage of its convictions and commitment to its mission so as to allow its staff to engage in robust scientific, political and academic debates, regardless of any perceived reputational damage that critical positions might generate.
“The simple fact of the matter is that defence of the core value of genuine academic freedom is not well served by the corporate, top-down, anti-collegial and managerialist structure and culture in today’s universities, and is incompatible with managerial preoccupations with “brand” and “image”. This might explain why so many university managements (including JCU) sought to remove Academic/Intellectual Freedom clauses from our Enterprise Agreements in the current round of bargaining.
“Whither academic freedom?
“In this environment, the NTEU is obliged to reassert its commitment to academic freedom, even or especially where its expression contains statements that may be at odds with many or most members’ views.
Without the maintenance of the core value of academic freedom, our universities would cease to be worthy of the name.
“The NTEU calls for the immediate reinstatement of Professor Peter Ridd.”
We agree!
It seems clear that JCU ‘s attitude is their way or the highway .Lets hope that sanity prevails and academic freedom of speech wins out .As the old guy said we’ill put it up em .
The union just waited if JCU would get Ridd of him.
Failing, these useless advocate of its members is now trying to climb back the mountain with suddenly discovered 10mply commandments.
My union has never done a damn thing to support and defend special educators against the wholesale onslaught from people not satisfied with this, that, or the other thing. One district says this is good, while the next district says no, this is bad. This is why I don’t belong to our local teachers union. They are good folk for sure, but I don’t trust teacher unions any farther than I can throw them, regardless of the current union in my district and its decent officials.
Apparently applications at JCU dropped off suddenly.
There is only one way forward, for Peter Ridd:
Forget the lawyers; Forget the Media; Forget the hype on all sides;
KEEP TO THE FACTS !
Dr Peter Ridd has obviously said something about the Great Barrier Reef, but something that is according to his measured facts. Keep to these facts and show everyone where they are wrong to ban him from further research at the James Cook University (JCU). He must hammer this in, – that he has done nothing wrong. He has kept to the scientific facts !
I am suspicious of the union’s motives. At first they left Peter adrift but then when they realised how much support he had and the money to fight his case they decide the university should rehire him. Many of you would not be aware that the JCU had recently received $450 million to fund research into the reef so it might be “saved”. The biggest threat is not nature but a scientist who proves there is nothing wrong and that the money might be better spent elsewhere. The union do not want a high profile court case which would expose the dodgy predetermined science that shows the reef is in terrible and immediate danger because the taxpaying public might question what other research is also less than the best. The taxpayer might think that universities are responsible for the current high electricity bills caused primarily by renewable energy subsidies, mandates and foolish fixes such as big batteries and inefficient water storage . We know they would be correct in that assumption and added to the current stories of universities more interested in teaching students what to think rather than how to think those institutions of Marxist ideology might lose funding and employ less academics.
Peter should pursue his case. He has support and more will be available if he needs it. Should he be reinstated I have no doubt his “collegiate” colleagues would ostracise him and force him to resign anyhow. Remember what this same mob did to Bob Carter. JCU has to be put on notice along with every other climate university that there are other answers that do not contain the carbon atom.
As one door closes, another may open.
There is so much seed money now on the table for reef research in Australia, the logical thing is set up the equivalent of an open university in Marine Science and start studying all the reefs around Australia and the Timor Gap.
The purpose would be pure research, not necessarily model building.
Such an organisation would be tasked to attract back to Australia those who have left our shores to work in science overseas.
As such it would seed our institutions with those of proven or potential calibre, expats as well as visiting academics.
Prof Ridd would be a good pick for Chief Scientist.
Hopefully Peter Ridd will be both reinstated and the University publicly support debate on the issue, or lose federal funding. I’d rather they do it voluntarily but……
Good…. But I can’t help but reflect on how useless this “Union” was in helping Bob Carter when he was censored and removed…
It is about time the NTEU took up Peter’s case and recognised the effect of the left wing influence on all of our once great universities. The ignorant stand of ANU, bending to the will of this same dilittante, the Union, and banning the acceptance of a study centre for Western Culture.
Given the nature of present university culture, it is to be hoped that this widely publicised case, will start an evolution which will return the University and what was once the strictly non-political ‘Staff Association”, back to an unpolitical approach to the important tertiary sector.
Perhaps it’s because I don’t tread the halls of the academy that I’ve begun to suspect that the chief job of the administrator of one of these academic bordellos is to provide someone who can design a study to support whatever action the owners of the government at the moment think will enrich them.
In the last 50 years I’ve probably missed the discoveries that rival those of Newton, Rutherford, Dalton, Charles, Einstein, Galilei, Faraday and Heisenburg to name but a few.
No union of the physics of the large with the physics of the small, no cure for heart disease, cancer and diabetes, no fixes for war, poverty and crime. This action from the Australian outfit with pretensions of achievement are just about what the world should expect.