Dr. Peter Ridd sens this update via email:
The court just announced that we have been awarded around $1.2 million (provisional on submissions).
This case was always about academic freedom.
It was a fight that should never have started in the first place.
I have worked for 35 years on the Great Barrier Reef, and my genuinely held belief is that there are systemic quality assurance problems at GBR science institutions. I had a right, a duty, to say this. JCU have still not accepted this fundamental right despite the importance of the debate to the North Queensland region.
The case shows the importance of strong clauses in Enterprise Agreements that were negotiated by the union, and relied upon in court. It also shows the importance of the federal government’s initiatives, such as the French Review, to require universities to behave like universities. If JCU appeals it casts doubt that academic freedom is part of their DNA as they often insist.
An appeal will continue the huge and pointless legal costs. JCU admit to spending well over $600K, although we suspect their true costs are far higher. The legal costs to my wife and I is around $200K. This is on top of the $260K that was donated to us in the crowd funding campaign. Our intention is to re-donate the $260K to assist with science quality and academic freedom initiatives but this will have to wait until any appeal is finished. I should add that under the Fair Work Act each side usually pays their own legal fees.
As ever I am very grateful to those who supported this cause. JCU has three weeks to appeal. If they appeal, regrettably I will likely have to call upon this support again. Until any prospective appeal is finalised, we will not be in a position to access the court payout. My lawyers say it is a landmark case so it is imperative that we continue the fight if necessary.
I’d like to thank my excellent legal team Stuart Wood AM QC, Ben Jellis, Ben Kidston, Mitchell Downes and Amelia Hasson. Also, without the support of the IPA especially Jennifer Marohasy, John Roskam, Gideon Roezner and Matthew Lesh, this would not have been possible
Lastly and most importantly I’d like to thank my wife Cheryl. She suffered most but was always rock-solid in support.
The link to the Judge’s reason is below.
https://platogbr.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/ridd-v-james-cook-university-no.2-2019-fcca-2489.pdf
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This is great news about the settlement in favour of Peter Ridd but if JCU appeals he will again need support until JCU finally destroys itself in shame on the rocks of Academic Free Speech.
I suggest that if JCU appeals, an ad campaign be launched to expose the misconduct of the administration, focused on stripping JCU of its alumni financial support.
If I were a grad of JCU, I’d never give them another dime in alumni donations – to date they have wasted about $2 million dollars on the truly vile oppression of Mr. Ridd, in blatant contravention of his rights to free speech and academic freedom. Those responsible should be fired for cause.
Aye!
In agreement with nicholas and Allan!
Allan
You have put you finger on the crux of the problem: accountability.
Without accountability (defined as termination or prosecution for violation of laws), it sets the president for zero consequences for bad behavior.
The JCU crowd, beside being in violation of several laws and contracts, just seems to be petty and vindictive – the very definition of incompetent managers of a public trust.
Not just the alumni, the government should be asked why it is giving taxpayers’ money to those crooks.
Best $100 I have spent!!!
While, not as generous as Brad, I too am glad to have supported Dr. Ridd!
May freedom and true justice always win against tyrants!
Agree, I’m really glad I took part on this. It is not about who is right about the GBR now or in 30 years. It is about the right to speak up as a scientist.
JCU should not only lose, it should be punished in a way that makes sure this will not be done again. One million is unfortunately too small a punishment for that purpose.
And I will be happy to make another donation if JCU appeals.
Me too!
And I.
Bloody Aussie socialist commie leftist MSM will not report Peter’s well deserved success.
Their are exceptions. Quite a few hits searching Peter Ridd. But the “West” is largely unbiased.
https://thewest.com.au/news/qld/court-win-for-unlawfully-sacked-professor-peter-ridd-ng-cad13a649cdb89d64c8b1f8b414b5d21
Front page.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/06/peter-ridd-awarded-12m-in-unfair-dismissal-case-against-james-cook-university
Now, this is an interesting sentence. “The climate change sceptic scientist “, not the usual Grauniad “Denier” labelling.
They don’t want to get sued.
Adam Gallon
First off, well done Peter, although for the distress it’s caused you and your wife, it should have been at least double.
Secondly, I wonder if Chris Moncktons threat of legal action against Nature is perhaps causing some ripples as to how sceptics are addressed.
I’m not a lawyer, but I believe if the court award is for damages, it is tax-free (or would be here in the US).
The Guardian as ever is wrong in its description of a real scientist, who is expert in his chosen field of study.
Peter Ridd along with all genuine scientists, believes in climate change. No true scientist ever advances any scepticism about the climate changing.
To refer to Peter Ridd as “The” climate change sceptic scientist, does not hide the obvious discomfort the Guardian is experiencing. They can’t hide their bitterness. A real academic has defeated, in court, the efforts of a discredited academic institution to silence him, along with the truth he holds.
Well done Peter, we stand ready to support you should the need arrive.
I am a genuine scientist, and, up to now, I believe that most (perhaps, all) of the actual climate change that has occurred in the last 150 years is natural. I did not think this was so 20 years ago, but I looked at the historical and current data, and kept an open mind, as all good scientists do. Reversing my previously held belief was mandatory. I also supported Peter Ridd, and will do so again.
It should be “the climate change usual explanation sceptic scientist”, although in this case it should be “the our emissions are destroying the Great Barrier reef sceptic scientist”.
Sure, but his stance on climate change, that is, how CO2 should / should not be taxed, has no bearing in this case. JCU fired him on illegal grounds.
Knowing the Grauniad, it’s probably a spelling mistake.
Climate change sceptic [sic] scientist? AKA – Physicist.
I’ve often wondered if journalists are simply trolls or are they just plain dumb?
First of all congrats to Dr. Ridd and hope, that if JCU appeals, the next stage will double the award.
As about “journalists” of today? Dumb doesn’t sound right — useful idiots would fare better, IMHO.
“The climate change sceptic scientist “
They couldn’t just say scientist. No bias at all.
Loydo: Please contact the Administrator, it cut the bottom of your post. The part where you tell what you think of the merits of the case, and wonder if your AGW activist friends are properly handling university assets. Maybe the grauniad covers it?
In the articles trailing promo, trolling for donations the guardian states:
“…from the escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.”
Any rag that would in the same breath declare an escalating climate catastrophe, while claiming to be a source of accurate reporting with integrity at its heart. Deserves to be debunked and dismantled. Yet there is a drone army of climate alarmists who cannot see the duplicity of that passage. Good God are these people stupid.
Thank you Peter. You have been strong and I do hope there is no appeal. This is bigger than simply climate change: it is as you write, very much about the intellectual freedom in university, even schools, that they are trying to stop.
Congratulations from a fellow Queenslander!
Well done Peter Ridd for fighting the good fight for academic freedom for all of us.
Congrats Dr Ridd.
I know the appeals by JCU will continue, but a $number like that should make a rational man/woman pause and think “What the Hell are we doing here mate?”
But then I realize with climate alarmists seeking rent and who need a raison d’être for their grant submissions, we are not dealing with rational men/women who put integrity of science first.
You can count on my support.
Certain elements of JCU’s conduct in this case are beyond belief. Just two instances from the judgment:
“The [JCU] email criticised Professor Ridd for breaching directions that the Court had held were unlawful. It said that ‘in court, he admitted that he knew it was wrong, but did it anyway’. Such a statement is a blatant untruth. [emphasis mine] Frankly, for an institution that strives to graduate tomorrow’s leaders to engage in conduct of this sort is remarkable. It is a bad look and one that cannot be justified.
“134. Another untruth in the email was a statement that Professor Ridd ‘was never gagged or silenced about his scientific views, a matter which was admitted during the court hearing’. This was never admitted by Professor Ridd or his Counsel at trial.”
Just unbelievable. Such blatant in your face lies. They must have been counting on everyone going along with them or not checking. Good to see there are still honest judges down under.
To the JCU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG8dt9NCuVM
(Steely Dan, Only A Fool Would Say That.
Oddgeir
No:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6iRNVwslM4
Credence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Rising
I see the bad moon rising
I see trouble on the way
I see earthquakes and lightnin’
I see bad times today
Don’t go around tonight
Well, it’s bound to take your life
There’s a bad moon on the rise
I hear hurricanes blowing
I know the end is coming soon
I fear rivers over flowing
I hear the voice of raze and ruin
“Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.” – Theodore Parker, 1853.
A less true thing was never said. Or does anyone think the every growing number and proportion of lawyers equates to increasing justice?
Are they required to pay the award into an interest bearing holding account until appeals have been exhausted?
Should be!!
Again the JCU can only seek leave to appeal, there is a whole other step before an appeal. They may also be only given leave to appeal parts of the decision not the entire thing. Remember there are 13 separate findings.
For those interested the process is here
https://www.fwc.gov.au/disputes-at-work/how-the-commission-works/appeal-a-decision-or-order
For JCU that is probably $500K to seek leave to appeal, plus what another $600K to do the appeal and the success rate is less than 10%. As Peter noted none of that money is recoverable. I am betting JCU will pay the money and crawl and hide.
The judge was also very interested in making it hard for the appeal of either lesser monies or for reversals of his reasoning. He documented the excess of JCU then gave the middle of the monetary span to justify that he was neither treating the transgressions lightly, nor being vindictive in his assessments.
He also is apparently a good writer. The ruling is a hoot if you like such stuff.
It was almost a joy to read. I like this Judge Vesta, even when he was being scrupulously fair to JCU, who deserved none of it.
Given his commentary on the press release, I was surprised there was no direction to remove it and scrub it, as far as is possible, and to forbid them from continuing to state or insinuate that Dr Ridd has done anything wrong, upon pains of contempt of court charges, or similar.
Judge Vesta may not have had the power to require removal of the press release, given that this is not a ‘usual’ civil case, but an employer-employee hearing, within the boundaries of the employment contract.
It may be that he is restricted by the Act, in respect of the matters with which he could deal, and the ambit of his powers (see paragraph 2 of his first decision).
And of course, he could not order the removal as Professor Ridd did not claim that sort of relief in his claim ( since JCU had not at that time defamed him by declaring that he had admitted matters in court when he had not done so).
For the same reasons, Judge Vesta may have felt constrained to restrict his comments about the posting to its effect on the employment matter, and not treat is as a matter of contempt.
Judge Vesta was *extremely* careful to stay away from the actual locus of the matter: that Professor Ridd refused to comply with orders that he retract his scientific opinions. JCU then treated the refusal as misconduct requiring punishment.
If the situation is framed as a military matter, then Professor Ridd was court-martialed for refusing an Order to carry out a war crime. That the Order was illegal has been put aside: Judge Vesta only dealt with the procedural aspects of how the court martial was empaneled and conducted and whether Private Ridd was required to accept the orders of someone who was effectively not in his chain of command.
Maybe Professor Ridd should now send the University a libel ‘concerns’ letter, requesting the removal of the posting and a retraction of the statements about his ‘misconduct’ and his purported ‘threats’ made to his employer and his purported ‘misconduct’ in refusing to abide by the improper gag directions. To be followed on by a draft Statement of Claim, delivered on the day after the end of the indulgence period provided in the Act (28 days??) with a request for clarification of the University’s position at that point.
I am reasonably certain that he can find support for his costs in going forward. And with a civil claim, JCU will end up paying costs!
Fair enough, DC, and thanks for the additional perspective. Based on other observations within the Commonwealth court systems, I had assumed that Australian judges would be able to offer unilateral injuncitve relief and orders from the bench, especially in the case of obviously-fraudulent statements involving his own court. I just can’t believe that JCU would be so egregiously, um, insensitive? to have published such easily-refuted commentary into the public sphere. It beggars the imagination as to what these folk use for their cognitive processes.
Yes, I read it, except for the prefatory material. The judge was very deliberate in all his statements.
My guess is that JCU will ask for leave to appeal all 13 findings. I don’t think they are picking up the tab.
Great news for Peter Ridd .The initial verdict that Peter Ridd had won his court case never made it to any news
paper or TV news slot here in New Zealand.
I will be looking for coverage this time but our left leaning news is very biased about any subjects to do with climate change .I doubt that it will rate a mention .
Graham
Out standing result. Now I just wait for it to be reported on the ABC……
As you’d expect
https://ipa.org.au/publications-ipa/aunty-complains-about-a-lack-of-alternative-views-thats-a-bit-rich
media watch did a hatchet job on Peter I gather
I dont have a TV so have no other info
but friends have written to complain to aunty
THE most biased “unbiased reporting” on climate..well gruniad lockstep maybe?
Media Watch is everything that is wrong with the ABC, squeezed into 15 insufferable minutes.
Smug, elitist ….
Media Watch even repeated hysterical comparisons between Ridd’s research and anti-vaxxer campaigns.
…. reduced to a tired pantomime about right-wing commentators pushing the views of one scientist to advance their own murky climate agenda.
Mediawatches tweet
“Trust the science not the contrarian.
The expert panel on the GBR tells the minister to ignore Dr Peter Ridd. #MediaWatch”
https://twitter.com/ABCmediawatch/status/1168784440497033217
Oh! So Mediawatch admits that it is only popular opinion that the GBR is endangered. Nice to know.
con·trar·i·an /kənˈtre(ə)rēən/ noun
1- a person who opposes or rejects popular opinion, especially in stock exchange dealing.
Well done Dr. Ridd!!!
They will insist that they support academic freedom but then saddle it with restrictions that make it meaningless. It reminds me of a free speech case where the defense quipped something like: “Freedom of speech has to mean something more than the mere right to soliloquy.” (Sorry, I can’t find a link.)
I still do not think that is sufficient to cover the pain and mental torture that they put you through. Also the fact that they have to all in purposes made you unemployable. This should not just reflect what they have done now but include covering everything for the rest of your life.
Guess the ABC will be all over this.
I’ll go to be rather than waiting, but I am absolutely sure the reports will be there when I wake up.
Honest.
Also, well done 🙂
Well done Dr Peter Ridd.
It is well worth reading the link to the Judge Vasta’s judgment.
In my view JCU got a severe smacking of the hand.
The Judge was scathing of JCU’s conduct and apparently ongoing conduct.
The VC, Professor Sandra Cocklin (now there’s an apt name ! ) should now resign to save the university further disrepute. I wonder if major donors and federal government (tax payers) will apply pressure ?
That’s not her name.
Why not take a look at the publications of Sandra Harding. link This woman is pure unbridled social justice warrior (SJW). JCU knew what she was and should have anticipated trouble. Appointing her looks seriously negligent to me.
That was not a particularly impressive CV to put it mildly. Four short junk articles and a non-peer reviewed “report”
I strongly recommend reading her latest effort “North by North” (it is just four pages):
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/53842/1/53842_Harding%20and%20Nile_2017.pdf
It is a diatribe against maps having north at the top and the inequity of the Mercator projection, and it nicely shows her consummate mastery of postmodern jargon and bottomless ignorance of everything else (for example she clearly has no idea of the original meaning of the word “arctic”).
The popularity of the Mercator projection by the way is not due to white nordic chauvinism but to its unique property that a line between two points automatically yields the correct course to steer between them.
And astronomers must be exceptionally woke and PC since planetary (and moon) maps have always had south at the top.
That North by North work deserves a chapter in Monmonier’s “How to Lie with Maps.”
https://researchonline.jcu.edu.au/53842/1/53842_Harding%20and%20Nile_2017.pdf
“For example, it [Mercator] magnifies Greenland to be approximately the same size as Africa, which is actually fourteen times larger. The Greenland example is one of many northern amplifications and conceits that belittle the south…..The slag heaps of Orwell’s north have long since been dressed with turf and lawn, the chimneys have ceased spewing out noxious sulphur dioxide”
She tries to act like a scholar, but knows but little about cartography and the history of why plane geometry has problems with spheres. She dislikes “sub”, claiming “…literally meaning below north.”
She probably mistakes gender for sex, or versa-visa and has little appreciation for the ‘sub’ prefix. Like ‘substantive right’ defined as the right (as of life, liberty, property, or representation) held to exist for its own sake and to constitute part of the normal legal order of society. Of course, that definition came from an old dictionary. (2001).
“She probably mistakes gender for sex, or versa-visa”
Absolutely everyone in media, even Fox News, does this. It’s infuriating.
In our institution, we are sometimes asked by other universities to comment on CVs for promotion at their institution. One of the questions is often “Would this person have been promoted at your institution?” Our institution has pretty strict guidelines, which take into account not only publication records, but also other factors. Sometimes a technical report (i.e. a non-peer-reviewed report published by the university or other institution) should count, for reasons I won’t go into here.
But in her case, I think I’d have to say no, she would have been promoted. As you say, four articles, one in a journal that published seven small volumes before folding (more to say about this below). She is fourth of four authors in one article, and second of two in another. We require a minimum of ten articles (including book chapters etc.). I confess to not having read all five of her documents, just their abstracts, but I’d be hard pressed to say that hers are substantive.
About the Journal of Tropical Psychology: Her article in this journal is only four pages, which is rather short for a journal article (it’s even short for a conference paper). I think the reason it was published at all is that she was in with the editor. Quoting from the “Editorial” by the editor in the first volume, “Special recognition in the formation of this journal should go to Vice-Chancellor and President Sandra Harding (our journal’s muse) of Australia’s James Cook University for her vision.” (Link to the editorial at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-tropical-psychology.)
The thrust of the journal was clear; I’ll quote from the closing editorial: “Our tropical focus on what was once only a piece of global geography increasingly applies to our entire overheating planet, an Earth now that, when seen from space, glows with a hot golden aura from the exponential impact of climate change.” Bizarre.
Congratulations, Dr. Ridd.
Well done, congrat Peter Ridd !
//TJ
As in the movie The Castle, and regarding their whole case, ‘tell ’em to get stuffed’.
Or “Tell ’em they’re dreamin'”
More gist for the mill.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/07/peter-ridd-update-james-cook-university-wasted-630000-defending-bureaucrat-rulers-of-science-lost-plans-to-appeal/
yes yes yes – thank goodness there are still good, fair-minded, honest, intelligent, resilient people in the world such as Peter, his wife, the financial backers/campaigners, the legal fraternity – this gives one hope and hopefully no more of Australian taxes will be wasted on this – I’m Aussie and proud that this positive outcome happened here but sad that there are still so many uninformed and easily lead and unfortunately ignorant zealots in the world – but unfortunately that’s part of human nature.
it’s great to take heart when the TRUTH AND JUSTICE PREVAILS
You know, you can use a period instead of a hyphen…
“Dr. Peter Ridd
sens(sends) this update via email:That first line typo still not corrected after 24 hours
…. BTW my posts keep going straight to moderation
Dunno why … You should know I am one of the good guys
Get a life. Sad.