James Cook University head in trouble over firing of Prof. Ridd

Ridd is an honest scientist who had the daring to call out fake Greenie science at the university.  So they hate him with a passion.  In an old, old strategy, they thought to protect the Greenie crooks by attacking the whistleblower

If the vice-chancellor of James Cook University thinks she can keep a low profile, she is mistaken. Sandra Harding’s management of the sacking of physics professor Peter Ridd is under the microscope for good reason. The buck stops at the top. And much is at stake, with JCU facing international reputational damage over the scandal, huge legal costs, cost-cutting pressures from falling student numbers and staff discontent.

“The bottom line is Sandra Harding should go," says a former member of the university’s 15-member governing council. “It’s in the interest of everybody that she retires." Speaking to The Weekend Australian this week, the former council member says if Harding doesn’t retire, she should be sacked.

Ridd, an esteemed physics professor respected by students and staff, was sacked by JCU using a bogus claim of uncollegial behaviour that was rejected by the Federal Circuit Court last month. He questioned the quality of science about coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef. JCU spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending its right to sack Ridd, rather than encouraging a healthy debate about the claims he made.

So much for JCU being a bastion of academic freedom in the search of the truth. “Ridd is a decent man," says the former council member who has had a long association with JCU, adding that Ridd did not want this fight. “He never set out to hurt anybody. But he did believe in what he was saying, he had evidence, and it’s proper to call out your colleagues if that is needed, to get to the truth. JCU took the nuclear option against Ridd, and that was crazy."

Sacking Ridd was squarely a management issue for the VC, but the former council member says that JCU’s governing council should now be far more involved given the fallout from this debacle.

Still in close contact with JCU staff, including academics, the former council member says staff are upset and “whether or not they agree with Ridd is a separate matter. This court case probably cost the university a million bucks, which is money JCU cannot afford."

The Weekend Australian has been told JCU is cutting about $20 million each year over its forward estimates due to financial pressures because the university is not meeting its own student enrolment targets. The former JCU council member confirms that is “one of the reasons why the staff across campus are very unhappy".

“They know that there will be further redundancies coming. Those redundancies have already been chosen, but the staff haven’t been told who they are."

According to the ex-member, the other reason the governing council should be more involved is that “the sacking of Ridd is being watched around the world. It is damaging JCU’s reputation in an area where JCU leads the world. In marine science, JCU is the top dog. To have that reputation damaged is extraordinarily worrying."

The Weekend Australian also has been told JCU’s governing council has received briefings but otherwise has had little hands-on involvement in the Ridd matter. Given that council members have fiduciary duties similar to board members, some are asking why the governing council is not more involved with issues of reputational damage to JCU and the big bucks spent on court battles with Ridd.

The Weekend Australian sought an interview with Harding. She declined. A spokesman provided some answers by email to a list of questions, and a link to a statement by JCU provost Chris Cocklin after the Federal Circuit Court found against the university last month. The Weekend Australian also rang and left a message with JCU chancellor Bill Tweddell, who chairs the council. He did not return the call.

Though Harding has tried to keep her head down, the focus will remain on her. And it is not just her handling of the Ridd case that is causing consternation. “One of JCU’s current council members has been precluded from taking part in any council discussion involving Ridd because they reckon he has a conflict of interest because he knows one of the lawyers acting for Ridd," says an insider.

“That’s not a conflict of interest," he says, clearly frustrated by the erosion of council oversight, adding that “the council member didn’t want to rock the boat, so he has agreed not to attend meetings when the matter is discussed. She (Harding) might fight the battle, but she won’t win the war and there was never a need for the war in the first place. (JCU’s) campus is a very unhappy place right now."

All this when Harding, in her 60s, might be planning one more career move. Her term as JCU boss expires at the end of 2021. She has been mentioned as a future Queensland governor. Some say she has her sights on one of Australia’s grander Group of Eight universities. But the controversy over her handling of Ridd won’t make either promotion easy.

“This is a significant bump in that road to a bigger and better position," says one insider, who has been involved in the governance of JCU.

According to the former member of JCU’s governing council, Ridd has more support on campus than he realises, including from fellow academics. Something for Harding to keep in mind.

This month, Ridd told The Weekend Australian that none of his colleagues had defended him publicly. He suggested the need for “kamikaze academics", academics who are older and established enough to resign in the noble cause of defending academic freedom. A few days later, JCU adjunct associate professor Sheilagh Cronin resigned from her unpaid position at the university. “After reading that, I thought ‘that’s me’," she told The Weekend Australian this week.

Cronin wrote to Harding, resigning from her role at JCU and outlining her concerns over Ridd’s treatment: “I believe his treatment by yourself and your board is completely contrary to the philosophy of open discussion and debate that should be at the heart of every university. It saddens me that the reputation of JCU is being damaged by the injustice of Professor Ridd’s case."

Cronin told The Weekend Australian she is also concerned about the scale of money spent on litigation against Ridd, and more still if JCU appeals.

“When the federal government gives us money, we are very closely scrutinised and so we should be. These are precious dollars that could be used elsewhere," says Cronin, a doctor who has overseen a $23m budget to provide health services through the Western Queensland Primary Health Network. It is the same at JCU, she says, where the governing council has oversight duties.

“I’m not looking for a row with JCU, but I think there is an important principle of openness and transparency when you’re handling taxpayer dollars."

Cronin is troubled by the lack of introspection at the highest levels of JCU: “They’re putting all the blame on him and they aren’t looking at themselves."

Cronin has not received a response from Harding.

A few weeks ago, former JCU dean of science John Nicol wrote to each of JCU’s council members expressing his concern that “the university’s reputation as an honest broker in the field of marine science has been trashed".

“I am writing to express my concern and disappointment at the worldwide unmitigated adverse publicity, which the university management has brought to bear on James Cook University’s fine reputation, through its inaction in ensuring the integrity of all of its research output and its un-conscienable (sic) treatment of Professor Peter Ridd who sought to encourage the university to restore such integrity."

Nicol concluded his letter to council members as follows: “James Cook University now needs your direct intervention and support." He has not received a response to his concerns from any council members.

The Weekend Australian asked Harding whether, given the dismal fallout from the Ridd saga, JCU intends to commit to the set of principles about academic freedom recommended by former High Court chief justice Robert French in his recent report to the Morrison government.

Harding had nothing to say. A spokesman referred back to the provost’s April statement, adding this: “JCU strongly supports the principle of academic freedom and notes that the French review found there was … no evidence, on the basis of recent events, which would answer the pejorative description of a ‘free speech crisis’ on campus."

Pulling a single line from the lengthy French review has further disappointed Harding’s critics. “Harding is making a huge mistake in the way she’s managing this whole issue," the former council member says of the university’s attempt to justify the Ridd debacle and fob off the French review.

French appealed to university vice-chancellors to embed a culture of academic freedom on their campuses: “A culture powerfully predisposed to the exercise of freedom of speech and academic freedom is ultimately more effective than the most tightly drawn rule. A culture not so disposed will undermine the most emphatic state of principles."

French’s recommendation for a model code of academic freedom was released by the Morrison government barely two weeks before JCU’s attempt to sack Ridd was rejected by a court at first instance.

Harding might re-read the whole 300-page French review before deciding to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting the respected physics professor in another round of expensive and damaging litigation.

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Qld.:  Palaszczuk government drops coalmine fine as pressure of Federal election result mounts

The Palaszczuk Government has dropped a bid to fine Adani-owned Abbot Point Operations $12,000 over the company’s release of sediment-contaminated floodwater during Cyclone Debbie in 2017.

The environment department today agreed to Abbot Point Operations’ offer to build a $100,000 real-time water quality monitoring system at the discharge point of its settlement ponds in return for the penalty infringement, which had escalated to court, being dropped.

Located 25 kilometres north of Bowen in north Queensland, the port of Abbot Point, owned by Adani, is Australia’s largest deepwater coal port and is supplied by a rail line from the Bowen Basin coalfields.

It would also be the offload point for coal from Adani’s proposed Carmichael mine in the neighbouring, but as yet untapped, Galilee Basin.

Abbot Point Operations, formerly Abbot Point Bulkcoal, was charged in 2018 with contravening a temporary emissions license after it released sediment water during the cyclone in March 2017.

The emissions license granted the company to release water from its settlement ponds into the ocean but Adani’s own monitoring of the water quality found the sediment concentrations in the released water had been eight times higher than was authorised.

Abbot Point Operations had pleaded not guilty, arguing that the sediment had not reached the Great Barrier Reef offshore and therefore the license had not been breached.

The Department of Environment and Science fined Abbot Point Operations $12,190 but the company elected to have the matter heard before a magistrate.

In a statement released today, Abbot Point Operations said it had reached an agreement with the government that would see the court matter resolved.

“As part of (a) commitment to continually improve our environmental management, we welcome the Queensland Government’s acceptance of an Enforceable Undertaking application that we lodged voluntarily in order to deliver additional water quality monitoring at our site," the statement said.

“This Enforceable Undertaking will help ensure positive environmental outcomes are achieved in the near-term instead of continuing prolonged court proceedings in the Magistrates Court related to an alleged floodwater release during Cyclone Debbie.

“This new water monitoring infrastructure will allow us to measure water quality in real-time to assist in managing stormwater impacting our site.

“It will give the regulator and the community further confidence that our operations are being managed safely and responsibly."

The water monitoring system will be built at the authorised flood water release point opposite the ocean to provide real-time monitoring of water flows.

Abbot Point Operations’ pledge to build the new system comes on top of $15 million in infrastructure improvements at the site in the past two years, including increased water storage, higher levee banks and better piping.

The department has previously said “no known environmental impacts occurred as a result of the discharge".

The charge was not in relation to the nearby Caley Valley Wetlands.

The dropping of the fine comes as the Palaszczuk Government faces pressure from Labor members and its own MPs over its handling of the approvals for Adani’s Carmichael mine.

The Adani issue, and Labor’s mixed messages about whether the party supports the project, were a key feature of the federal election campaign in Queensland and are believed to have played a considerable impact in Labor’s poor results in the state.

Former state and federal Labor candidate and ex-mayor of Bowen, Mike Brunker, demanded a “rank and file revolution" in the north.

“I’m calling for a rank and file revolution in north Queensland to change the leadership (of both the Premier and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad)," Mr Brunker said.

“The Premier should have made a captain’s call by now, and said this rot’s got to stop, this (Adani) has got to go through)."

“If Adani is not fixed within the next fortnight or month, Labor is going to get wiped out in the state election."

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