Well said Dennis, it's nice to know there are some brains coming through our parliament. We are sure going to need some, with the number of dumb lawyers in there now.

Good luck with a royal commission though mate, I don't like your chances. Not only would the labor party, & their fellow traveling academics end up looking really stupid, but so too would more than a few of your lot. Even if you get into power, I think you'll find much resistance to having the truth come to light.

If only governments would be honest. They have taken over so much expenditure that should still be personal cost to the public that they can no longer meet the bill. I would prefer they just said so, & either raised taxes, or dropped some services.

Unfortunately they aren't prepared to do that. They prefer to feed us this load of bull sh1t in their grab for cash to get out of the hole they have dug.

You know, life really is nicer for those too dumb to see the wood for the trees.

There’s no need even to mention climate science in order to demolish Dennis Jensen’s main reasons for calling for a Royal Commission on the subject.

• Based on a few examples, Dr Jensen rightly points out that that science sometimes gets it wrong. One lesson is that scientists need to maintain some level of humility when arguing contentious matters. If only he had followed that prescription! Labor, he says, is ‘using flawed science’. No humility there. Dr Jensen knows the science is wrong. That’s why he wants a Royal Commission, to prove him right!
• Then he attacks the ‘mission statement’ of the IPCC. It is, he says, ‘asking the wrong question’ because it has ‘presumed anthropogenic factors as the cause of climate change’. But that’s not at all what the ‘mission statement’ (the IPCC uses the term ‘role’) from which he quotes actually says: ‘The role of the IPCC is to assess ………… information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change’. No presumption there.
• Finally, what on earth does Dr Jensen imagine an Australian Royal Commission could achieve? Could its terms of reference look much different from those of the IPCC? Hard to imagine. Will it call on experts smarter than the IPCC’s 2500 to review once again the massive amount of material compiled in IPCC reports and elsewhere? Or will it simply ask Dennis Jensen for his opinion? After all, he seems entirely convinced. He must have his reasons.

There is certainly a need for more understanding and debate about how to tackle emissions and the consequent economic impacts. A Royal Commission won’t help

As a loyal member of the Liberal Party, Dr Jensen may well subscribe to the view of his leader that global warming is a load of crap. Some would describe his call for a Royal Commission in similar vein and as pointed out by nicco and Tombee (18/11), with good reason.

The peer review process is a lot more effective than any Royal Commission could ever be in scrutinising and vigorously challenging the research and findings of scientists, particularly those engaged in the area of climate. That scrutiny is relentless and continuous and is quick to dispute the conclusions reached by scientists and the basis on which they have been reached.

Peer Review has not found that either climate science or its major findings are wrong. We often hear from so called “skeptics” and climate change deniers who challenge the findings of climate science but in order to substantiate their views they have to resort manipulation and misrepresentation of scientific data and empirical evidence. Scientists are permitted no such indulgence.

"A Royal Commission into the science of climate change will allow an honest public debate, free of emotion, based on the evidence."
-Dr. Jensen, MP

Yeah, that'd be nice - but I consider it wishful thinking. How are we going to stop the denialists and the extreme greenies and all the other varieties of lunatic who will crawl out from under their rocks of ignorance to make contributions to this Royal Commission? It will facilitate public debate, but it won't ensure honesty, reason or empiricism from participants in said debate.

Then again, maybe a Royal Comission would be helpful in sorting the non-science from the science. Right now we have this strange situation where one side denies sound climatological research (global warming is real, and humans are the cause), which is not scientific. Meanwhile, the other side accepts unscientific research (economics) as science and treats untested hypotheses (predictions that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket) as irrefutable fact, which is also not scientific. Anything which helps to rectify this situation cannot be considered a bad thing.

Unfortunately even Royal Commissions can be stacked, as were the farcical British 'investigations' into the Climategate affair, in which most of the evidence pertaining to the probity of Phil Jones was volunteered by-- guess who? Phil Jones! -- and the overall amount of time and effort just about added up to a long working lunch for each participant.

Besides, AGW -- sorry, climate change -- sorry, climate disruption -- (just what IS this week's new attention-grabbing term?) is hitting the skids so hard that by the time the Royal Commission gets organised there will be nobody to interview; just a bunch of clear-eyed and deeply sincere scientists explaining how they were tricked into it by those wicked public servants, and a bunch of innocent and empty-handed bureaucrats explaining how it was all the fault of those evil scientists.

And Al Gore sneaking quietly away muttering: "I would have got away with it too, if it hadn't been for those darned sceptics!"

I for one think a Royal Commission is an excellent idea.