Garnaut lambasts media reporting

Sydney Morning Herald
1 July 2011, Page: 2

Ross Garnaut has lashed out at "crude" and "distorted" reporting of the government's plans for a carbon tax, calling News Ltd the worst offender.

Speaking at a conference sponsored by The Australian, a News Ltd title, on his last day as the government's climate change adviser, Professor Garnaut said much of the reporting had been "about the crudest and most distorted discussion of a major public policy issue in my long experience of Australian public policy". "I know from my close friends among the senior journalists at The Australian that there is disquiet about that. And I don't think my feelings are unusual".

Singling out a front page story which he said implied electricity prices would rise by 11% as a result of renewable energy schemes, he said the true figure was close to 3%, with the schemes actually responsible for 11% of a 30% increase. "I could give you dozens of examples", he said. "Facts are ignored, the rules of logic violated, and it is rare for people professing strong opinions to go back and look at the documents on which they have commented".

Surveying an audience of 200 economists and academics at the Melbourne Institute Australian conference, he said he knew of only two who had read his climate change report in full. One was the opposition frontbencher Malcolm Turnbull. The misrepresentation of the US position on climate change had the potential to harm Australian foreign policy, Professor Garnaut said.

"When I and others have written about the Australian reform era, we have given a large place to the positive role played by a highly professional, committed Australian media", said the former Hawke government economic adviser. "Great figures such as Peter Robinson, Max Walsh [and] Max Suich transmitted the analysis that was going on in the universities and the Tariff Board and built a platform that made reform possible".

The Australian's economics editor, Michael Stutchbury, said it was wrong to compare the battles over tariff reform with those over a carbon tax.