MEDIA RELEASE: CSIRO needs international support to counter Howard's bullying

Web: http://www.safecom.org.au/

CSIRO needs international support to counter Howard's bullying

Media Release
Tuesday January 9, 2007 7:00am WST
For immediate Release
No Embargoes

"Australia's CSIRO Scientists need and should look for reputable international scientific colleagues in their community, to help them both expose and counter the intimidation, bullying, and destruction of their reports and the silencing that's become so commonplace for how John Howard deals with the public sector," WA Rights group Project SafeCom this morning, in response to suggestions by the Canberra Times (transcript below) that all copies of their recent damning Geosequestration Report were confiscated and shredded to prevent it from becoming public.

"We know how secretively and manipulatively the Howard government deals with the independence of the public service if this shocking government administration wants to manipulate public opinion to suit their policies," spokesman Jack H Smit said, "and we've seen this with the Department of Immigration, with the Navy at the time of Tampa, we've seen it with Australia's intelligence organisations when a few whistleblowers stepped out and spoke out, and now we're seeing it with Australia's most reputable climate scientists."

"The points raised by the Canberra Times report constitute yet another round of John Howard's interference with CSIRO's findings and opinion: last year ABC Four Corners showed that CSIRO is being gagged from speaking out on the implications of climate change on "environmental refugees" and on the implications for and obligations on Australia."

"There are damning questions to be answered by the Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell following the Canberra Times revelations. Already we know that the Environment Minister is a Wolf in Sheep's clothing, who really peddles in line with the Howard government, the interests of the mining industry in preference to the protection of the planet - whether that's the preservation of the coal industry or the push for uranium mining, as we saw this week in his attempts to bully the WA Carpenter government over its no uranium mining policy in Western Australia."

Project SafeCom is preparing to host CSIRO's Solar Thermal Energy Project in Western Australia during the coming months, in collaboration with The Greens and other organisations in WA, so CSIRO can showcase its modelling of all of Australia's energy needs as projected at the year 2050: last year May CSIRO modelled a facility in an Australian desert area of 50 x 50km2, which would generate all of Australia's energy needs as we will have them in the year 2050.

"CSIRO is a scientific community, and it is paramount that they keep speaking out independently, fearlessly and that they keep acting as scientists, whether John Howard and Ian Campbell like what they hear or not. Only that will generate an independent and full debate, and if that means that we never, ever should go on the path of Geosequestration in Australia, then so it be. The fact that John Howard and Ian Campbell want to stack the climate debate and hide what our scientists are warning for and against, makes Howard and Campbell into environmental vandals, and in the light of the Stern Report and Al Gore's findings, they are happy to do so while the planet literally burns at it's very latest hour."

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http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/detail.asp?class=your%20say&subclass=
general&story_id=544528&category=Opinion&m=1&y=2007

ENDS