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Maurice Newman

Maurice Newman

Credentials

Background

Maurice Newman is a former stockbroker, company director and chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and has been an advisor to several Australian governments. In September 2013 he was appointed chairman of the Tony Abbott-led Government’s Business Advisory Council.2“MAURICE NEWMAN AC,” Macquarie University. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oLnWb 3“Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council,” Prime Minister of Australia, December 4, 2013. Archived with WebCite May 8, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/9rXje

Previously, Mr. Newman was the chairman of the Australian ASX stock exchange after spending several decades as a stockbroker and investment banker. In 1984 he was appointed a managing director and, later, executive chaiman at Deutsche Bank. He left that company in 2001.4“MAURICE NEWMAN AC,” Macquarie University. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oLnWb

He was chancellor of Macquarie University between 2002 and 2008 and was chairman of the public-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation from 2000 to 2004.5“MAURICE NEWMAN AC,” Macquarie University. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/oLnWb

He is a board member of the Queensland Investment Corporation, a state government-owned company which in November 2013 had more than $74 billion of funds under its management.6“Board Members,” QIC. Archived April 7, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/ON9Kq

Newman is a vocal opponent of wind farms and believes that the science of human-caused climate change is a “delusion.“7Maurice Newman. “Against the wind,” The Spectator, January 21, 2012. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/IfsBU 8Daniel Hurst. “Tony Abbott’s top business adviser accuses IPCC of ‘dishonesty and deceit’,” The Guardian, December 30, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/A5jkG

Stance on Climate Change

Newman has stated repeatedly that the science of human-caused climate change is a smokescreen for vested interests. He believes that the scientists who take part in the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UNIPCC) have fooled the world into believing climate change can be caused by humans. A “compliant media” has helped to foster the “myth” of climate change, according to Newman.9“Tony Abbott’s advisor Maurice Newman shows a different kind of climate change madness,” The Guardian, January 7, 2014. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/giGqo

September 17, 2013

Writing at The Australian Financial Review, Newman described cilmate change as a “myth”:10Maurice Newman. “Reorienting Australia after six years of Labor,” Financial Review, September 17, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018.

“The CSIRO, for example, has 27 scientists dedicated to climate change. It and the Weather Bureau have become global warming advocates. They continue to propagate the myth of anthropological climate change and are likely to be background critics of the Coalition’s Direct Action policies.”

July 3, 2013

Writing at The Australian, Newman declared:11Maurice Newman. “Climate change science has become an expensive smokescreen,” The Australian, July 3, 2013. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/AMAgk

“While CO2 may be a greenhouse gas, it seems that natural forces dominate climate change, not mankind’s emissions. Henrik Svensmark’s theory of cosmoclimatology (the role of cosmic rays) may be right.”

“This is the world of climate change. The science has become an expensive smokescreen behind which vested interests hide,” he also wrote.

Key Quotes

December 20, 2013

In an interview with The Australian, Newman declared:12Daniel Hurst. “Tony Abbott’s top business adviser accuses IPCC of ‘dishonesty and deceit’,” The Guardian, December 30, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/A5jkG

“The scientific delusion, the religion behind the climate crusade, is crumbling. Global temperatures have gone nowhere for 17 years.”

November 2012

Writing at The Australian, Newman declared:13Maurice L. Newman. “Losing their religion as evidence cools off,” The Australian, November 5, 2012. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/W7GmS

“When Mother Nature decided in 1980 to change gears from cooler to warmer, a new global warming religion was born, replete with its own church (the UN), a papacy, (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and a global warming priesthood masquerading as climate scientists. Selfish humans in rich, polluting countries were blamed for the warming and had to pay for past trespasses by providing material compensation to poor nations as penance. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions became the new holy grail. With a warm wind at their backs, these fundamentalists collected hundreds of billions of dollars from naive governments that adopted their faith on behalf of billions of people. No crusader was ever so effective.”

January 21, 2012

Writing at The Spectator, Newman declared his opposition of wind farms:14Maurice Newman. “Against the wind,” The Spectator, January 21, 2012. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/IfsBU

“Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don’t even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions.”

Key Deeds

September 2019

The Australian reported Lindzen was among those named in a statement by academic website The Conversation, which said it would ban comments from climate change deniers. The list was drawn from research published in the journal Nature, tracking the academic publications of climate change deniers and expert scientists across research in digital and print media on climate change. Those on the list included Richard Lindzen, Jennifer Marohasy, Judith Curry, Richard Tol, Bjorn Lomborg, Ian Plimer, and Maurice Newman.15Graham Lloyd. “No place in debate for climate contrarians,” The Australian, September 21, 2019. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/qIzvs 16Petersen, A.M., Vincent, E.M. & Westerling, A.L. Discrepancy in scientific authority and media visibility of climate change scientists and contrarians. Nat Commun 10, 3502 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09959-4

Alex Petersen, lead author of the study, said: “It’s time to stop giving these people (contrarians) visibility, which can be easily spun into false authority. … By tracking the digital traces of specific individuals in vast troves of publicly available media data, we developed methods to hold people and media outlets accountable for their roles in the climate change denialism movement, which has given rise to climate change misinformation at scale.”17Graham Lloyd. “No place in debate for climate contrarians,” The Australian, September 21, 2019. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/qIzvs

Curry said the paper “does substantial harm to climate science … There are a spectrum of perspectives, especially at the knowledge frontiers. Trying to silence or delegitimise any of these voices is very bad for science.”18Graham Lloyd. “No place in debate for climate contrarians,” The Australian, September 21, 2019. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/qIzvs

The Conversation‘s editor and executive director Misha Ketchell commented: “We moderate anything that is a deliberate misinformation and distortion of facts or attempts to misrepresent arguments or community members. We know climate sceptics are very good at derailing constructive conversations, so we’ll remove comments that attempt to hijack threads or to push an agenda or argument irrelevant to the discussion.”19Graham Lloyd. “No place in debate for climate contrarians,” The Australian, September 21, 2019. Archive URL: https://archive.vn/qIzvs

April 22, 2014

Newman appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ‘Lateline’ broadcast, with Emma Alberici, after recently (September, 2013) being appointed as chairman to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s Business Advisory Council. Discussing the topic of climate change, Newman was unswayed by Alberici’s mentioning of the fact that there is a “strong consensus” in the scientific community that human activities are causing climate change, citing surveys showing 97% of peer-reviewed climate studies agreeing that climate change is a human-induced problem.20“No evidence that man has caused warming,” ABC‘, April 22, 2014. Archived May 8, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/WsHhY

Newman immediately dismissed the surveys as having “flawed methodologies” and responded by saying:

“We know that there are a whole host of scientists out there who have a different point of view, who are highly respected, reputable scientists. So the 97 per cent doesn’t mean anything in any event because science is not a consensus issue. Science is whatever the science is and the fact remains there is no empirical evidence to show that man-made CO2, man-made emissions are adding to the temperature on earth. We haven’t had any measurable increase in temperature on earth for the last 17.5 years. If you look back over history, there’s no evidence that CO2 has driven the climate either. So I know that this is a view which is peddled consistently, but I think that the edifice which is the climate change establishment is now starting to look rather shaky because mother nature is not complying.”21“No evidence that man has caused warming,” ABC‘, April 22, 2014. Archived May 8, 2014. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/WsHhY

December 2013

In his column for The Australian, reported on in The Guardian, Newman accused the IPCC of “dishonesty and deciet” and said the science of human-caused climate change is a “delusion.”22Daniel Hurst. “Tony Abbott’s top business adviser accuses IPCC of ‘dishonesty and deceit’,” The Guardian, December 30, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/A5jkG

September 2013

In a column in the Australian Financial Review, Newman described human-caused climate change as a “myth” and criticised Australia’s science agency the CSIRO and the country’s Bureau of Meteorology for “propogating the myth.” Australia’s chief scientist Ian Chubb told the ABC’s Lateline program that Newman’s comments were “silly.”23Maurice Newman. “Reorienting Australia after six years of Labor,” Financial Review, September 17, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018. 24“Australia needs a strategic approach to the development of science,” Lateline, September 17, 2013. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/uBdvK

March 2010

Speaking as the chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s public broadcaster, Newman accused some journalists of succumbing to “group-think” in failing to entertain the views of climate change sceptics.25“ABC Chairman criticises media’s climate change coverage,” ABC, March 10, 2010. Archived February 16, 2018. Archived .mp3 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/rSFSy

When asked later by ABC reporter Brendan Trembath if he regarded himself as a “climate chnage denier,” Newman responded: “I am an agnostic and I have always been an agnostic and I will remain and agnostic until I’ve found compelling evidence on one side or the other that will move me. I think that what seems fairly clear to me is that the climate science is still being developed. There are a lot question marks about some of the fundamental data which has been used to build models that requires caution.”26“ABC Chairman criticises media’s climate change coverage,” ABC, March 10, 2010. Archived February 16, 2018. Archived .mp3 on file at DeSmog. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/rSFSy

Late 1970s

Newman is a founding board member of the free market think tank the Centre for Independent Studies, which in the 1990s invited and hosted several climate sceptics, including Mark Steyn, Bjorn Lomborg and James Delingpole.27“Mission & History,” The Centre for Independent Studies. Archived February 16, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/o98fm

Affiliations

Publications

Maurice Newman is not known to have any scientific qualifications and, according to a search of Google Scholar, has never had a scientfic paper published on the subject of climate change.

Other Resources

Resources

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