Thursday, January 26, 2012

What they would prefer us not to know


At the time, in January last year, we did it here, herehere, here, here and here, pointing out that the Queensland floods were largely a man-made disaster. We were joined by Booker on 15 January, one of the very few MSM journalists who pursued this issue.

Needless to say, the Queensland state Premier Anna Bligh was talking of "exceptional events", and the BBC happily chirped about the "freak of nature" – an attempt to reinforce the subliminal message that nothing could have been done, while the rest if the British MSM sat on its hands and said nothing of the involvement of the dam management and the dire effect of the green agenda.

But now, there seems to be a concerted attempt to cover up the role of the management of the Wivenhoe Dam. The top-level Commission of Inquiry is charged with "overlooking" crucial documents about the management of dam in the days before the inundation of Brisbane.

These documents, leaked by The Australian last year, indicate that on the crucial weekend of 8-9 January last year the dam's managers were operating under a low-level release strategy rather than a more urgent strategy to prevent flooding, contradicting evidence given to the inquiry.

The cover-up looked even more sinister it was revealed that a top civil servant was seconded to a senior new job advising premier Anna Bligh on the floods inquiry after he had provided the documents to the inquiry that suggested flood engineers were using the wrong strategy to operate Wivenhoe Dam.

However, new evidence how now emerged - an exchange of e-mails between two of Queensland's most senior water officials seems to confirm that the wrong strategy was being used to manage Wivenhoe Dam, and that water officials have been lying to the inquiry.

Some commentators now believe that the inquiry will be a whitewash, and are pinning their faith on a class action, which seeks damages on the basis of corporate and government negligence, even though the inquiry has been recalled to hear the new evidence.

But, while the Australian media is running with this issue, the British media is, of course, silent. Despite the broader implications, which would be of some considerable interest to British readers, the media would rather us not know how badly the Greens screwed up.

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