{"id":88219,"date":"2026-09-04T16:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/88219\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T16:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T16:27:10","slug":"climate-authoritys-misinformation-report-hit-a-nerve-at-news-corp-for-a-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/88219\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate Authority’s “misinformation” report hit a nerve at News Corp for a reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Climate Change Authority seems to have poked a very sensitive possum at News Corp with its succinct if not especially revealing report on misinformation as a \u201cclimate policy risk\u201d.<\/a><\/p>\n

Released with little fanfare by the CCA on August 24, it took The Australian almost a full fortnight to crank up its anger machine, leading its Friday front-page headlines with the screamer: \u201cBowen\u2019s Ministry of Truth is here to tell you that energy policy is going perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, the exaggerated protest was accompanied by a plodding commentary, entitled \u201cOrwellian crusade to silence the critics and the naysayers.\u201d And there was the obligatory editorial leader, warning of \u201cthe danger of shutting down dissent.\u201d<\/p>\n

As if.<\/p>\n

Your correspondent has a couple of disclosures to make on this matter \u2013 see below. But it\u2019s fair to say the absence of a grotesque editorial caricature of federal climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen as Stalin, or Mao, or Xi, did leave a sense of disappointment.<\/p>\n

Surely Saturday\u2019s Weekend Australian will reheat the atrocity? Guess we can expect the US-based media outlet to bleat in endless column centimetres about defending the right of free people to decry \u201cforeign-owned\u201d renewables investors blanketing prime Aussie farmland with their wind and solar \u201cfactories\u201d. Etc. Etc.<\/p>\n

Outrage, of course, is central to the business model for the 15th-most popular news website in the country in Australia. Last month\u2019s readership was half Guardian Australia\u2019s, which must hurt, and it even lagged The West Australian and The New York Times, according to IPSOS.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\tScreenshot of The Australian\u2019s online version of its largest effort to counter criticism<\/p>\n

At News Corp, sensitivity to discussions about \u201cmisinformation\u201d on climate matters is raw because few organisations have so consistently campaigned over decades to stymie climate action \u2013 possibly anywhere on the planet.<\/p>\n

That the University of New South Wales (UNSW) \u2013 one of the world\u2019s leading universities in solar and climate research \u2013 should this week agree to a deal with News Corp<\/a> to provide \u201caccess to quality journalism\u201d surprised a few at the university. (News Corp did not respond to queries from Renew Economy.)<\/p>\n

After all, as Andrew Dodd and Matthew Ricketson detail in their new book, Getting Murdoched, News Corp has operated in a \u201cclimate of denial.\u201d The authors cite research showing that, between 2004 and 2011, the ratio of articles or opinion columns published in The Australian that were unfavourable to climate action ran four to one supporting it.<\/p>\n

No doubt fresher surveys would find a similar if not grearter ratio, even as the evidence of climate impacts grows virtually by the day, here and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Adding to the tally of \u201cunfavourable\u201d climate content is the fact that \u201cnet Zero\u201d now serves as shorthand across News\u2019 media outlets for everything that must be stopped lest our economy be impoverished.<\/p>\n

Nevermind that achieving \u201cnet zero emissions across all three scopes of emissions by fiscal 2050 or earlier\u201d, remains News Corp\u2019s top goal in its own environmental, social and governance report<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But returning to this issue of the CCA and its \u201cofficial playbook for energy right thinking,\u201d in The Australian\u2018s lame attempt to channel George Orwell\u2019s disapproval.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Bushfires near powerlines close to Batemans Bay in early January 2020. (Source: Peter Hannam)<\/p>\n

A couple of disclosures from me. Until last month, I toiled at the Climate Change Authority as an advisor to its chair, Matt Kean, a former NSW energy minister and treasurer in a Coalition \u2013 not Labor \u2013 government.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t claim much involvement in the 12-page \u201cmisinformation\u201d report (which is only about six pages, once acknowledgments and other materials are excluded).<\/p>\n

Contrast that with the 294-page report<\/a> by the Senate\u2019s Select Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy, published in March this year, covering similar issues.<\/p>\n

(Naturally, The Australian attacked the committee\u2019s report as descending into a \u201crealm of censorship,\u201d in a piece by columnist, Chris Uhlmann. Oddly enough, Uhlmann fronted the inquiry, not as a journalist but someone labelled \u201cCommunity Support\u201d. He appeared in a public session along with members of Rainforest Reserves Australia \u2013 a group that faced committee questions about its findings<\/a> in a controversial report.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most absurd element of The Australian\u2018s coverage on Friday, though, was its claims a cross-agency working to tackle climate misinformation amounted to a \u201cMinistry of Truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Australian Public Service provisions limit me from providing specifics without prior authorisation concerning my 18 months at the CCA. <\/p>\n

It would be clear to any casual observer that governments \u2013 frankly any entity \u2013 face a deluge of distortions that they can hardly let whistle through to the keeper.<\/p>\n

Some come from the fringes of the internet, or get elevated onto our social media feeds by algorithms designed to harvest our attention. Or they appear in legacy \u201cmainstream\u201d media.<\/p>\n

The seeds of misinformation often have a deliberate intent, which is why\u201ddisinformation\u201d is often a more apt descriptor. Guileless or accidental errors seem to make up the minority.<\/p>\n

To return, though, to this \u201cMinistry of Truth\u201d tosh. <\/p>\n

It appears to stem from the CCA report\u2019s not unreasonable comment that \u201ceffective responses require coordination across government, with different agencies contributing expertise, insights and actions within their respective mandates.\u201d Silos exist, I can confirm.<\/p>\n

Once the reader recovers from that revelation, the CCA reveals a couple of paragraphs later that the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water [DCCEEW] had \u201cformed a cross-agency communications and stakeholder engagement working group to support a more collaborative approach to addressing climate misinformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cue, outrage.<\/p>\n

That working group, so I understand, amounts to all of a handful of people. It\u2019s likely they will continue to have other tasks and, in any case, will have to explain the need to extend their work, before long.<\/p>\n

In other words, a tiny temporary sub-group within DCCEEW. A micro-Ministry of Truth, then.<\/p>\n

But, hold your smelling salts. Why wouldn\u2019t the government want to have a say?<\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t we in a once-in-a-few-generations race to replace aging fossil fuel power stations that \u2013 by dint of an investment binge 40-odd years ago \u2013 are rapidly nearing the end of their design lives?<\/p>\n

And aren\u2019t we seeing the effects of climate change on a daily basis with a record El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> event brewing in the Pacific about to make more than a few things worse?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like the Albanese government invented community engagement. <\/p>\n

Didn\u2019t the previous Coalition government both appoint a wind farm commissioner, Andrew Dyer, and then extend his remit<\/a> to try to understand and deal with quite understandable local concerns related to renewable energy?<\/p>\n

The present government has even set up a rating scheme<\/a> \u2013 after engaging in feedback from state and territory counterparts of various political stripes \u2013 to boost transparency about the track record of renewable energy developers. Another conspiracy, surely.<\/p>\n

They even engaged in an extensive (and costly) 2023 survey of 6700 respondents by CSIRO<\/a> to help understand the \u201cchallenges and opportunities for local communities and the wider public\u201d of the energy transition.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s much more to be said about The Australian\u2018s track record on distorting climate change issues, as Renew Economy has noted over the years \u2013 watch this space.<\/p>\n

(Such distortions have also kept journalists at the Guardian\u2019s Temperature Check <\/a>and the ABC\u2019s Media Watch<\/a> busy for years.)<\/p>\n

As the Australian National University\u2019s Eleanor Buckley and R.M. Colvin noted in their research paper<\/a> from earlier this year, based on work in Victoria\u2019s Wimmera Mallee, opposition to the energy transition \u201cdoes not begin and end with transmission towers and turbines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, for some, \u201copposition to renewables is an extension of resistance to perceived government overreach that began with responses to COVID-19.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, some frustration and anger of governments\u2019 handling of the energy transition is valid, but nobody is gagging public discourse. On the other hand, no responsible government should leave it solely to media and social media companies to fill the information void. <\/p>\n

Governance is not getting easier, and as societies struggle to cope with more frequent, more severe and more disruptive weather, the challenges are going to get worse.<\/p>\n

When those calamities arise, no doubt The Australian will misinform its readership, to paraphrase a quote from Orwell\u2019s 1984, \u201cto reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It [will be] their final, most essential command.\u201d<\/p>\n

To join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free,\u00a0click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To support independent media, and help combat the spread of deliberate misinformation and disinformation about the energy transition, you can click here to make a one off donation or become a regular supporter of Renew Economy.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Peter Hannam is a veteran journalist whose work spans almost four decades and includes stints outside Australia, including time in China, Japan, Singapore and Mongolia. He has lately reported extensively on energy, climate and environmental issues in Australia, and also worked for the federal Climate Change Authority as a special media advisor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Climate Change Authority seems to have poked a very sensitive possum at News Corp with its succinct…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,26905,149672,958,149673],"class_list":["post-88219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-cca","tag-climate-change-authority","tag-featured","tag-matt-kean"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}