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Out of touch and out of their depth

The Daily Telegraph
March 20, 201312:00AM

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FOR anyone who believes in a free press, or indeed even free speech, some of the astonishing revelations from the parliamentary hearings chill the blood.

Is it evidence of gross misconduct by media organisations? No.

Is it evidence of phone hacking or bribery, the overseas crimes for which the government has decided to punish Australian media organisations? No.

It is evidence of something far more disturbing than that: It is evidence that the very people leading this bull in a china shop assault on free journalism are so confused, ignorant, ill-informed and naive that they have in the most literal sense absolutely no idea what they are talking about.

As this newspaper has constantly maintained, the very media inquiry itself was based on a wholly false pretence that was never justified nor explained. It’s foundation was a vague smear that somehow the atrocious practices in the UK were also taking place in Australia. As has been demonstrated time and again this is not only completely untrue but a cheap and nasty slur on all Australian journalists.

Now we discover that the man chosen to head this inquiry is so either thoroughly inexpert or thoroughly uninterested in media matters that he was not even aware the Australian Press Council had already implemented core aspects of his recommendations.

It beggars belief that a man suddenly appointed the nation’s foremost authority on the media should not be aware of such things – the fact he knowingly presented himself to a senate hearing without having even bothered to check on the current status of the Press Council is nothing short of staggering.

Were that not enough, we have also had to bear witness to the shameless leading questions being spoon-fed by the seemingly unreconstructed socialist Senator Doug Cameron to his comrade witnesses while at the same time suffer the wild accusations and conspiracy theories he spouts to his perceived enemies under parliamentary privilege.

While there are many examples of Senator Cameron’s undergraduate gullibility – not least his constant confusion between Australian and UK press outlets – just one is enough to render Senator Cameron’s paranoid delusions in the light they deserve to be seen.

Take the Senator’s charge that former Press Council chair Ken McKinnon had told the Finkelstein inquiry he had been offered a bribe by a newspaper editor to waive complaints. In fact Professor McKinnon has now gone on the record to say the comment was clearly a joke recorded in notes he gave to the inquiry. Indeed, he said, the joke was made to emphasise the regard editors had for the council and how much they disliked adverse findings.

And to quote Professor McKinnon verbatim: “I am completely sure that I made clear to the inquiry that the comment being touted was in the context of the respect accorded to the council; it was a jovial phrase said over lunch.”

But perhaps the darkest irony is that, in the coward’s castle of the Senate, Cameron is immune from the consequences arising from his smears and falsehoods. Out here in the real world the press has no such protection.

And yet he and the one-eyed lynch mob that swallows every cliched accusation without question think we’re the ones whose words need to be controlled. It’s hard to believe that they’re not joking too.

National Party dumps Richard Torbay over links to Obeid

Alicia Wood and Barclay Crawford
The Daily Telegraph
March 20, 201312:12AM

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Dumped … Richard Torbay / Pic: Tim Barnsley Source: The Daily Telegraph

RICHARD Torbay has been forced to quit as the federal Nationals candidate for New England over revelations about links to disgraced former powerbroker Eddie Obeid.The independent state MP and former speaker was disendorsed by the Nationals last night.

Party chairman Niall Blair said: “The party has received information … of which we were not previously aware regarding Mr Torbay.

“The matters in question predate Mr Torbay’s membership of The Nationals. The party has asked Mr Torbay to withdraw his candidacy for New England and to resign from the NSW National Party, which he has done. We will immediately proceed to preselect a new candidate … to take the fight up to Tony Windsor and the Gillard Labor government.”

Standing as an independent, Mr Torbay won the NSW seat of Northern Tablelands in 1999 and then again in 2003 and 2007. In 2007 Mr Torbay accepted an offer by Premier Morris Iemma to become speaker of the house – a move supported by Eddie Obeid to ensure the Labor government ruled with a greater majority.

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Fairfax Media last week reported that Mr Obeid’s meeting diary revealed that Mr Torbay had frequent meetings with the now disgraced former Labor MP.

Federal independent MP Rob Oakeshott also made reference to the connection with Mr Obeid on Twitter as the news broke.

“As stated before, the reach of Obeid went beyond one political party. And is one of the reasons why I’m now independent MP. Good luck Tony Windsor,” Mr Oakeshott tweeted.

Mr Windsor, the member for New England, shed light on the connection between Mr Torbay and Mr Obeid in an article in the Australian Financial Review on Monday.

“It seems as though being advised and mentored by Obeid means he’s got a few questions to answer,” Mr Windsor had said.

It is understood Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner and senior MP Andrew Fraser pleaded with Mr Franklin not to pre-select Mr Torbay.

The decision prevented Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce from running in the seat.

Mr Joyce last night indicated he would consider contesting the seat.

“Ben Franklin hand-picked Torbay and backed him in against the advice of senior MPs,” a source said.

“This is a critical error for Mr Franklin who has been too busy worrying about his own parliamentary ambitions rather than the good of the party.”

Mr Torbay said last night: “Given the current toxic political environment, I do not want to put my family, the community or myself through an ongoing smear campaign.”

Govt reportedly drops discrimination bill

AAPUpdated March 20, 2013, 9:28 am

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The federal government’s decision to put its proposed anti-discrimination laws on hold has been welcomed by the Institute of Public Affairs.

The conservative think tank heralded the move, reported in The Australian on Wednesday, as a victory for free speech.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was reported as saying the government could not proceed with plans introduced by his predecessor Nicola Roxon to draw five existing statutes under a single piece of legislation.

The statutes covering age, disability, race, sex and other forms of discrimination were to be consolidated, with the most controversial change relating to the onus of proof.

The government could not proceed with the draft bill at this time and would be sending it back to the attorney-general’s department for more work, Mr Dreyfus told The Australian.

The IPA said it was “outrageous” the government would make it illegal to offend someone because of their political opinion.

The think tank said reversing the onus of proof was another “fundamental problem” and the decision to withdraw the legislation entirely instead of attempting to amend it was the right move.

Under the proposed changes, after the complainant established a prima facie case of discrimination, the respondent would then have to show the action was justified or didn’t amount to discrimination.

The IPA has argued the onus of proof should remain on the person making the accusation as it was often very difficult to prove innocence.

The Australian Greens described the decision as nonsensical, saying Labor had their support to push the changes through parliament.

“Labor has lost the political will to protect human rights,” leader Christine Milne said.

The purpose of the changes was to raise protections to the highest standard and make discrimination claims clear and simple, she said.
“So why has Labor turned tail and given up on equality again?” Senator Milne said.

Whistleblower goes to CMC over rookie MP

AAPMarch 20, 2013, 8:33 am

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: Secrecy claims dog Driscoll

: More allegations raised against Driscoll

A whistleblower has has gone to Queensland’s corruption watchdog with serious claims about the conduct of rookie MP Scott Driscoll.

The whistleblower is from the taxpayer-funded Regional Community Association Moreton Bay (RCAMB), The Courier-Mail reports.

The newspaper has previously alleged Mr Driscoll had direct control over RCAMB, while tens of thousands of dollars in consultancy fees were paid to his wife’s company Norsefire.

The paper said the whistleblower went to the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) on Tuesday, with thousands of documents alleging the LNP MP has serious questions to answer.

In parliament on Tuesday, Mr Driscoll defended himself against a raft of recent allegations including claims of sexual harassment, financial mismanagement and improper business dealings.

He said he’d done nothing wrong other than failing to declare that his wife received more than $500 in income from a private company she runs, an error he would rectify.

Premier Campbell Newman is standing by his first-term MP, saying there’s nothing to suggest he’s unfit for public office.

The CMC on Tuesday confirmed it had received a referral from the Department of Communities in November last year, alleging official misconduct against Mr Driscoll.

The CMC said it found the matter did not involve official misconduct and therefore fell outside its jurisdiction.
But the watchdog said it was assessing all new relevant information on the matter to decide whether or not it needs to take any further action.

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Slabs of Ancient Tectonic Plate Still Lodged Under California

Mar. 18, 2013 — The Isabella anomaly — indications of a large mass of cool, dehydrated material about 100 kilometers beneath central California — is in fact a surviving slab of the Farallon oceanic plate. Most of the Farallon plate was driven deep into the Earth’s mantle as the Pacific and North American plates began converging about 100 million years ago, eventually coming together to form the San Andreas fault.

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Large chunks of an ancient tectonic plate that slid under North America millions of years ago are still present under parts of central California and Mexico, according to new research led by Brown University geophysicists.

Around 100 million years ago, the Farallon oceanic plate lay between the converging Pacific and North American plates, which eventually came together to form the San Andreas fault. As those plates converged, much of the Farallon was subducted underneath North America and eventually sank deep into the mantle. Off the west coast of North America, the Farallon plate fragmented, leaving a few small remnants at the surface that stopped subducting and became part of the Pacific plate.

But this new research suggests that large slabs from Farallon remain attached to these unsubducted fragments. The researchers used seismic tomography and other data to show that part of the Baja region and part of central California near the Sierra Nevada mountains sit atop “fossil” slabs of the Farallon plate.

“Many had assumed that these pieces would have broken off quite close to the surface,” said Brown geophysicist Donald Forsyth, who led the research with Yun Wang, a former Brown graduate student now at the University of Alaska. “We’re suggesting that they actually broke off fairly deep, leaving these large slabs behind.”

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Geologists had known for years about a “high velocity anomaly” in seismic tomography data near the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Seismic tomography measures the velocity of seismic waves deep underground. The speed of the waves provides information about the composition and temperature of the subsurface. Generally, slower waves mean softer and hotter material; faster waves mean stiffer and cooler material.

The anomaly in California, known as the Isabella anomaly, indicated that a large mass of relatively cool and dehydrated material is present at a depth of 100 to 200 kilometers below the surface. Just what that mass was wasn’t known, but there were a few theories. It was often explained by a process called delamination. The crust beneath the eastern part of the mountains is thin and the mantle hot, indicating that part of the lithospheric plate under the mountains had delaminated — broken off. The anomaly, scientists thought, might be the signature of that sunken hunk of lithosphere, which would be cooler and dryer than the surrounding mantle.

But a few years ago, scientists detected a new anomaly under the Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, due east of one of the known coastal remains of the Farallon plate. Because of its proximity to the Farallon fragment, Forsyth and Wang thought it was very likely that the anomaly represented an underground extension of the fragment.

A closer look at the region showed that there are high-magnesium andesite deposits on the surface near the eastern edge of the anomaly. These kinds of deposits are volcanic rocks usually associated with the melting of oceanic crust material. Their presence suggests that the eastern edge of the anomaly represents the spots where Farallon finally gave way and broke off, sending andesites to the surface as the crust at the end of the subducted plate melted.

That led Forsyth and his colleagues to suspect that perhaps the Isabella anomaly in California might also represent a slab still connected to an unsubducted fragment of the Farallon plate. So they re-examined the tomography data along the entire West Coast. They compared the Baja and Isabella anomalies to anomalies associated with known Farallon slabs underneath Washington and Oregon.

The study found that all of the anomalies are strongest at the same depth — right around 100 kilometers. And all of them line up nearly due east of known fragments from Farallon.

“The geometry was the kicker,” Forsyth said. “The way they line up just makes sense.”

The findings could force scientists to re-examine the tectonic history of western North America, Forsyth said. In particular, it forces a rethinking of the delamination of the Sierra Nevada, which had been used to explain the Isabella anomaly.

“However the Sierra Nevada was delaminated,” Forsyth said, “it’s probably not in the way that many people had been thinking.”

His research colleague asnd co-author Brian Savage of the University of Rhode Island agrees. “This work has radically changed our understanding of the makeup of the west coast of North America,” Savage said. “It will cause a thorough rethinking of the geological history of North America and undoubtedly many other continental margins.””

The work was supported by the National Science Foundation. Other authors on the paper were Brown graduate student Christina Rau, Brown undergraduate Nina Carriero, Brandon Schmandt from the University of Oregon, and James Gaherty from Columbia University.

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PRIME Minister Julia Gillard has appeared business-like and confident as she left the Labor caucus meeting today, but Kevin Rudd left the meeting 17 minutes earlier, looking stiff and focused.
It comes as the PM notches up 1000 days in the top job today and speculation mounts as to how long she will stay – with warnings she may be facing an election ”sooner than September 14”.

Independent MP Tony Windsor warned if the Labor Party could agree on who is stable enough to run the place then it does not deserve the support of the crossbench.

”If they continue with this election mode and this whole business about who the leader is well they might get to an election quicker than the September 14,” Mr Windsor told ABC TV.

But Cabinet Minister Simon Crean said Labor will not be calling an election before September 14.

”Tony Windsor is part of an agreement that sees us run full term, does he want to break his agreement?,” he said after the caucus meeting this afternoon.

Mr Crean rejected any suggestion of a leadership challenge.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national-news/bob-carr-denies-losing-confidence-in-julia-gillard/story-fncynjr2-1226600224579#ixzz2NyzrAP9n