PLEA Network

28 September 2015, Renew Economy,  Coalition dumps chief climate denier Newman, Hunt still hamstrung. In one of the surest signs yet that the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition is making a departure from the climate denying, anti-renewable energy thinking that has guided the party’s policy-making from the top down, Maurice Newman will not be reappointed as chairman of the prime minister’s business advisory council. Newman, a far-right conservative and outspoken denier of climate change, was appointed to the role by Tony Abbott in one of his first acts after becoming Prime Minister in 2013, and has been a key influence on Abbott’s policy direction since then. His controversial views on climate change – essentially that it is not happening, and ratherit’s global cooling we should be worried about – have been given a regular airing in a weekly column Newman writes for The Australian. Newman was also behind the push to investigate whether the Bureau of Meteorology was exaggerating temperature data records as part of what he saw as a broader climate change conspiracy. A push that, according to recent evidence revealed by the ABC, was knocked on the head by environment minister Greg Hunt. And so, Turnbull’s decision not to reappoint Newman now that his chairmanship has expired – one of the eight things we recently suggested the new PM could do to show support for renewable energy and climate change – is good news, not least for Hunt, who is now overseeing these departments in a so-called environment “mega-office”. Read More here