Baillieu's Blue Moment

VICTORIA, THE Garden State, is hunting for a new top cop, and since the previous recumbents have each left something to be desired, this would seem the moment for Premier Ted Baillieu to be very wary of planting another vegetable behind the chief commissioner’s desk. That’s the worry, of course, as any pal and protégé of Petro Georgiou can never quite be trusted to demonstrate a true, rock-ribbed approach to law and order. That Big Ted might saddle the state with yet another camera-friendly dud is quite a worry.

The former Brumby/Bracks regime saw policing as a matter of posture and pretense, with official policy reflecting an aversion to anything quite so messy as protecting property and public safety. When assaults increased, Victorians got more speed cameras. As rape surged, more speed cameras. Ethnic gangs blossomed, even more speed cameras – as well as many Police Academy photo ops with pygmies and gargantuas graduating in their turbans, dashikis, righteous beards, yarmulkes or grass skirts. One consequence of assigning policing to publicists has lately been evident in the suburbs along Sydney Road, where enthusiastic members of the Criminal-Australian community have been re-staging family feuds from far-off lands. Since ethnic gangs do not exist, as ex-Commissioner Christine Nixon repeatedly insisted, there was never the need to do anything about them. Her equally unlamented successor, Simon Overland, might have reversed that view, except that he was rather too busy arranging for eavesdroppers to monitor the phones of rivals, parliamentary aides, ministers and their families.

If Baillieu wishes to be re-elected his pick will need to be rather more than a poster child for the latest fashionable theory in social engineering and tokenism. Victoria has endured one commissioner whose chief qualification was a uterus and another who proved too fond by half of playing at palace politics. Now, maybe, if Petro is not whispering too much multi-culti nonsense in our Premier’s warm and fuzzy ear, we could actually get a proper commissioner.

If Big Ted needed a moment to contemplate the qualities that make for a good cop, the perfect time and place would have been yesterday morning on the Monash Freeway. Shortly before 6 o’clock, a poor unfortunate took a stroll along one of Melbourne’s most-used strips of bitumen. He was sent to meet his Maker by a passing truck – and the debacle that followed is something Baillieu really needs to consider.

How long does it take to wipe a corpse off a roadway?   An hour, you might figure, perhaps two if the odd finger or nose has vanished down a drain. Yesterday it took six interminable hours to scrape one body off a tiny patch of road. Tens of thousands of drivers sat … and sat … and then sat some more. Businesses did not open, workers did not arrive and deliveries throughout this city were delayed while the investigating officers measured distances, took pictures and jotted sat-nav reckonings. There was a blue helicopter hovering overhead and a festive season’s worth of bright lights flashing without pause as police observed all the authorised protocols. Meanwhile, Melbourne went nowhere.

When the short list of chief commissioner candidates is passed around Spring Street, let us hope someone has the wit to realise policing is about results, not just procedures.  The next top cop could even have a bone through his nose, which Petro would appreciate, if only the rest of us could be certain he understands that he and his force are there to make life both safer and more certain for the public they claim to serve. That has not happened in Melbourne for quite some time.

Busy

Family obligations today. Back tonight.

Missing Link

FORTY EIGHT hours have passed since Wendy Carlisle of  Background Briefing put to air her assault on Viscount Monckton -- two days in which a transcript of the sixty-minute slander has failed to appear.

The ABC must struggle through on a paltry billion-or-so dollars per year, but surely it could have processed and posted the script by now. Unless, of course, it would prefer to make a line-by-line examination of its handiwork rather difficult.

Readers might like to drop ABC supremo Mark Scott a polite note and ask why it is taking so long. He can be reached at:

Scott.Mark@abc.net.au

UPDATE: Background Briefing's page now says a transcript will be available on Tuesday afternoon.

And in further development, Carlisle says she will be "tweeting a response to claims I got it wrong on Lord Monckton". Let's help the poor, put-upon thing, shall we? After all, a 140-character limit doesn't provide much scope for elucidation. How about this:

"Can't touch me, I work for the ABC"

Until the election, sweetheart. Until the election.

UPDATE II: Now that we know Carlisle's transcript will be going up soonish, thereremains another reason to contact Mark Scott. Apparently the ABC recruits its in-house lawyers from the bargain bin.

Scott.Mark@abc.net.au

Your Taxes At Work

TAKE it from a media expert:

...both ABC and Fairfax are scrupulously balanced on policy debate. And they don't call anyone a bitch

Surreal.

Light Up A Viscount

THERE should be no joy in another’s pain, but lately the temptation to have a good, long laugh at the New Establishment’s pain has been irresistible. Things aren’t going quite as planned, what with those dismal polls and the shocking realization that out there in their millions, there really are people who refuse to believe that a nice new tax will be good for them. It has all come as quite a shock to the anointed, whose analyses of what is good for this wretched government have been so consistently skew wiff*. The carbon tax was supposed to be a natural winner, an easy sell, according to those same bell ringers, who  were out early to hail its genius and howl down all detractors.

Now that it is coming to pieces, now that the newsrooms at the Silly, Phage and Collective represent a large chunk of the hidebound 25% of the population still prepared to vote Labor, there is rage in the air. Watch Jonathan Holmes get in a snit about free speech that isn’t his kind of speech. Hear an ABC interviewer slam down the phone. Be amazed as the bravehearts of our fearless press approach this gangrenous PM on bended knee, begging for guidance that they might report her doings more equitably. The prescription was scatological. Her courtiers took it with their Press Club lunch.

Honestly, if you couldn’t laugh you would cry at the way in which the fury of frustration is manifesting itself, shredding even the pretence of balance. A particularly petulant example went to air over Radio National on Sunday morning. It was called The Monckton Road Show, and if there has ever been reason to clean out the ABC come the next election, this is it. It is a vicious,

For some reason the ABC has yet to post a transcript, but you can hear the full broadcast here.  Take particular note of the bit dealing with Lord Monckton’s rejection of Al Gore’s contention that shrinking Arctic ice is drowning polar bears. Referring to the paper on which Gore based his claim, a Monckton sound byte captures him saying:

 “Gore, for once, actually cites a scientific paper. He cites it wrong, of course, but he does cite it. And what he says is a scientific study shows, for the first time, they are finding polar bears that have drowned, swimming long distances to find the ice … so here is the actual map from the paper: Four dead polar bears!…

…did any of these polar bears, according to the paper he was quoting die because they were trying to find the ice. No, they died because there was a big storm with high winds and high waves and they got swamped. Or, as we scientists call it, shit happens. So there is no basis at any point for Al Gore’s story. It was complete fiction from start to finish.”

Clear on that? Good, because the next snatch of audio is from Carlisle, who is quite definite that Monckton is telling whoppers:

“The scientific paper that Lord Monckton cites does not say the polar bears drowned because of a big storm. The paper suggests that the polar bears most likely drowned because there was less ice for them to seek refuge on because of climate change, and that the drowned polar bears could be statistically significant.”

So let’s go to the paper, shall we? And remember, Monckton says it was bad weather that did for those poor bears. Carlisle tells listeners bad weather had nothing to do with it.

If, however, data are simply spatially extrapolated, bear deaths during a period of high winds in 2004 may have been significant

27 bears may have died as a result of the high offshore winds.

Our count of dead polar bears related to the 2004 windstorm….

Over the next days, high winds occurred across the study area, with light westerly winds switching to strong easterly winds peaking at 54 km/h at Endicott and 46 km/h measured at Kaktovik between 10 and 11 September (Fig. 2). Winds offshore were likely considerably higher … Seas became very rough with wave heights estimated in excess of 2m.

If that is not enough for Carlisle, there is this:

High mortality in 2004 was more likely related to extreme and metabolically demanding conditions, such as high sea states associated with stormy weather…

…Our count of dead polar bears related to the 2004 windstorm almost certainly represents an underestimate

What makes Carlisle’s misrepresentation so remarkable is that she has actually posted a link to the paper on Background Briefing’s web page. All anyone has to do is open and read it – something she appears not to have done.

Or did she? It is a dreadful, uncharitable thought, but in her hatchet job on Monckton, Carlisle seems to make a habit of misstating the papers to which she links. One error might be deemed a misfortune, to paraphrase Lady Bracknell, but to commit so many must be construed as carelessness.

Or perhaps  worse than carelessmness. A second of Carlisle’s gross misrepresentations will be the subject of a subsequent post

UPDATE: There has not been much time over the past week to stay entirely on top of events. Andrew Bolt has already pounced on Carlisle's contempt for professional standards 

UPDATE II: For those too young to remember...

 

The Unsinkable Grandfather Bunyip

MANY THANKS for the prayers and good wishes, which Grandfather Bunyip credits for what his no-longer-quite-so-worried kin regard as a near-miracle recovery. The old fellow was sent home yesterday with instructions to never, ever take an aspirin, not to drive and, above all, to avoid bending over. He agreed to everything and was set free.

Grandmother Bunyip is also much relieved. She had been fretting that the object of her affection might have lost some of his smarts, but the great survivor put that fear to rest when he looked up from a copy of today’s Phage, shook his head in wonderment at the editorial and asked a very simple question:

“If that witch wants to tax carbon dioxide, why isn’t she putting a tariff on goods from China?” he asked.

It is a riddle that demonstrates why Grandfather Bunyip is unlikely ever to be offered a post in the Gillard cabinet. Slurred speech and all (it is getting better every day), he remains far too smart to meet that lot’s standards. Mind you, so his little dog, whose only talent is licking its bottom and stealing the cat's dinner

Once again, many thanks for readers’ prayers and expressions of concern. There is quite a bit of rehab and speech therapy to come, but the Grey Eminence is very definitely on the road back.

Prayers, Please

GRANDFATHER Bunyip was in the back yard on Thursday when, as he puts it, he began to "feel funny", which sounds from his lips like this, "sel sphiny". The poor old bugger was having a stroke, not sufficiently severe to have prompted an immediate reckoning with the Great Bunyip, but nasty enough to put him in an ambulance and, soon after, a hospital bed, where he remains.

He is showing signs of recovery and the medicos are optimistic, more or less. The charm he is turning on for all the firm, young nurses suggests they are right.

Posting will be light at the Billabong for the next few days. If readers inclined to theism care to ask the Great Bunyip for a little help, those prayers would be greatly appreciated.