Poor old Aunty ABC! No matter which way she goes, those who disagree will find a 'hidden agenda', or a 'left wing bias'or even a
right wing slant'. Now it seems the driving force is the previously unheard of group called the 'inner urban greens' - whoever they may be. Perhaps the ABC simply calls the shots as the facts indicate in accord with its charter - it would then be no surprise that the worst and most incompetent prime minister this country has ever had the bad judgement to elect consistently comes out looking exactly as he is - a total fool completely out of his depth, with a cabinet to match. However, my comment must be taken in its appropriate context - that of a far-outer-urban-but-close-to-a-large-population-center-sometimes-left-sometimes-right-non-creationist-elderly-informed-physically-fit-pension-income-dependent-gay-accepting-well-travelled-male. I am thinking of forming my own party - however I cannot find any other members who meet the criteria.

FACTCHECK..IS A SCAM
to begin with who collected/collated THE RAW DATA
once we accord fail safe..faith in anything..it become perverted

and its not just because they ignored my pleas
to reveal the truth behind smoking statistics
who do have medical costs of 800 milion
but not the social cost..of 32 billion
but thats how much they need to steal from us..to make up the bugeted shortfall

abc is scum
floating the boat of the faithfull
sell/the dam thing..put the archive in full on line
OR MAKE IT INTO A TRAINING SCHOOL..THAt has students given airtime according to the quality of theIR WORK.[AS CHOSEN BY US ABC DIEHARDS].SELECTING THE LIVE/PROGRAMING..LIVE..ONLINE

GET RID OF THE FAT-CATS
PUT THAT INTO INVESTAGATIVE PROGRAMING

LEVERAGE THE BASE..talent..to exibit their wares
sell it to the highest bidder..plow the cash back into product
HALF THE STAFF 4 TO OINE STUDENT TEACHER RATIO..[THE ABC AND SBS SOLD US OUT LONGAGO

ITS TIME TO SELL OFF THE SELLOUTS
YOU CAN BUY The drama..but the rest belongs to us all
out takes miss takes the lot is put on line.its the collection of the histrory..i want kept ..NOT THE CENSURE OF THE STARS...MEDIA HAS SOLD US OUT

ITS TIME WE TOOK THEM OFF THE PUBLIC TEAT
AND USED THE ASSET TO NURTURE THE TALENT NEEDING THE TEAT

Have to agree, that the area under de-listing consideration is not wilderness!
It's the greens who have as usual, been the ones needing some fact checking.
Indigenous poeples have for millennium, been selectively harvesting their forests, with only benefits, to both flora and fauna, some of which are also hunted for food!
It really is time, the tiny minority that is the green movement, pulled their collective heads in, and stop acting as if the forests were their exclusive domain.
It is not your tree or my tree but our tree!
And the last time I looked, a democracy, was for the people, by the people and of the people!
Not a tail wagging the dog, raggedy ass protest movement, which is so full of inherent contradiction, to be literally incomprehensible!
At the end of the day, the only people, with the power to veto logging in particular parts of our forests, should be the Original custodians, which the green movement have routinely ignored, with their lock it away and leave it mentality, or their wild rivers idiocy.
I mean, where do these cloud dwellers get off, assuming they have a right to dictate their incoherent, I'm all right Jack, ideology to anyone?
And how many lives and or property could we have saved, simply by ignoring their wish list and cracking on with essential dam building or selective logging, which brings roads, (fire breaks) and many more eyes into the forests.
And grazing in national parks etc, reduces dangerous fuel loads, which in turn help reduce the risk of uncontrollable wild fires, that can and do, destroy hundreds of thousands of hectares; and, which simply don't have any respect for endangered species, or sphagnum moss!
Most of which could still be protected, by small fenced off enclosures!
Rhrosty.

Mark Poynter is still trying to justify the trashing of old growth and not so old growth forest in the interest of big business.
In the process he also has a slash at the ABC also a target for the Murdochracy and Abort. Oh I forgot the Greens are having their usual shellacking as villains.
It all comes back to the hard fact that FT has had the monopoly of the Tassie forest provided for free and has never managed to make it pay.
Instead it has held out it's hand for more subsidies to prop up this dinosaur industry, when it can never compete in the market they are aiming for, the chip and pulp export market.
Offshore pulp and wood chips are so competitive to a local product that it can only be a way of syphoning off subsidy payments into the murk of the forest that continues this push to breathe life into it.
Whatever your aim is in this attempt to justify Abbotts misguided interference. please give up and leave the forest to recover.

It is obvious that the ABC Fact Check Unit can't see the wood for the trees.

The ABC and it's sycophants are as dense as two short planks of milled and dressed native timber.

Mark Poynter is wanting us to believe his new rule has always been the rule; wanting us to believe that it has always been about wilderness; it hasn’t.

The Australian Government 2014 submission to the World Heritage Committee seeking delisting claims as its core justification for delisting “ to remove a number of areas in the extension approved by the Committee in June 2013 that contain pine [80 sq.metres] and eucalypt plantations [10 ha] and previously logged forest [circa 7,600 ha or circa 10%]”. No claim was made that it was proposed to be delisted because it was not wilderness.

Mark then blasts the ABC Fact Check for not recognising “that this was about wilderness values”. Inventive new rule, but not true; it was never about wilderness nor was it claimed in the 2013 nomination to be about ‘wilderness’.

As I am sure you know full well, wilderness is not a test used for deciding World Heritage; for natural heritage there are four clear assessment Criteria in the Operational Guidelines - (vii) to (x) - and …….no mention of wilderness. The 2013 additions were readily demonstrated to make important contributions to the Integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values of the World Heritage Area that previously met all four criteria.

I repeat, it is not about wilderness; it is about a whole range of natural attributes and values, including karst, caves, glacial landforms, threatened species, outstanding natural beauty but especially about the tall eucalypt forests - the grandest form of temperate tall eucalypt rainforest in the world. Removal of all of these features from the World Heritage Area, as proposed, will definitely impact on the Integrity of the Outstanding Universal Values of the Area. That is the issue; not some invented new rule about wilderness.

Therefore your claim that “it doesn't meet the definition of 'wilderness' and is quite understandably regarded as an inappropriate addition to a Wilderness World Heritage Area property” is a misrepresentation. You are again mistakenly - or deliberately - introducing your own invalid rule, equating ‘wilderness’ with ‘World Heritage’. Mark, another kite that doesn’t fly.

Hadrian

The forests in question are part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area - that's its official name. It therefore virtually goes without saying that proposing to delist forests from this area because they are not appropriate infers that they don't have the requisite wilderness values. Or are you saying that non-wilderness areas are appropriate within a Wilderness WHA?

From memory, the Labor Govt who created the 170,000 ha extension to the TWWHA last year didn't mention the 'wilderness' word either in their nomination submission. I presume that was so as not to invite scrutiny of areas that were clearly lacking in such values that are now within the 72,000 ha that the new Coalition Govt wants to delist.

If as you say, last year's extension was especially about reserving tall eucalypt forests, it is curious as to why the UNESCO/IUCN Reactive Monitoring Unit (which was invited to assess these areas in 2008 by local environmental groups) decided there was no need to add these forests to the then TWWHA because it was a multiple use landscape of undisturbed forest mixed with regrowth from past harvesting, and that the tall old forest types that it contained were already well represented in the existing 1.4 million hectares TWWHA, and other Tasmanian national parks and reserves.

In addition, I'm led to believe that even the Tasmanian Greens in their 2010 forests policy didn't include many of these areas now proposed for delisting in their plans for new forest reservations. So, why are they now so desirable? It couldn't be because reserving them puts another nail into the coffin of the Tasmanian timber industry, could it?

For an area to be part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area it first has to be wilderness. Yet the 'Independent' Brendan Mackey stated in his Government published report: "The definition of wilderness was adopted as defined for RFA. However, a suitable data set was not available to analyses the current distribution of forest wilderness in order to validate the ENGO claims."

"The only spatial layer of wilderness available was that produced for the RFA which dates from around 1998. By definition, wilderness quality changes as the result of the impacts of roading, industrial logging, and land conversion."

"Therefore, an important remaining task is to update the RFA wilderness layer with recent information about land use and related impacts."

No update has yet to be done,so it's wilderness value was ignored by the 'Independent experts', the failed Green ALP government and by the IUCN, and World Heritage Committee.

Yet wilderness quality was available and assessed using an Index developed one of Mackey's co-founders of the Wilderness Society's Scientific panel. This index rates wilderness on four attributes adding to a score of 20: 12 out of 20 is considered high quality of national value, 10 out of 20 or less in not. The map at http://soer.justice.tas.gov.au/2003/image/465/index.php shows that for most of the 170,000 ha extension in 2013, the wilderness quality was 10 or less.
For a map of the massive 2013 extension and the minor modification to the boundary proposed for 2014 see http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/pages/f99dbb51-03c2-4eb2-a66e-87c4044117b4/files/twwha-2014-proposal-map4.pdf

I suppose the only alternative is to get your "facts" from self-appointed experts such as Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones or to continue with your News (Limited).

Submissions from people with vested interests can be no more reliable than those who generalise.

Rache

I think what should happen is that the ABC Fact Check Unit should get facts from all sources and set them out for its readers to decide. It should not come up with its own 'verdict' because this is where it gets into trouble by following its organisational agenda, which, when it comes to environmental and natural resource use issues, indisputably slants to the Green-Left.

As for vested interests (and I wouldn't say that AB or AJ fit this catagory) - if the facts they contribute are indeed factual, why should they be derided. It is a curious thing in Australia that people who work everyday with environmental issues associated with resource use industries are seen by some as being invalidated from the public debate. Invariably, because they work so closely with these issues they know far more about them than arms-length environmental activists who are often basing their opposition on purely ideological grounds and don't even know the most fundamental things about what they are opposing.

It is curious too, that ENGOs, whose whole reason for being is based on opposing resource use industries, are somehow regarded as 'independent' when they are in many cases large business corporations whose ongoing funding is reliant on promoting eco-catastrophe scenarios even where they don't exist.

Mark Poynter highlights the problem with the ABC. As a government body, presumably they were to exist for the benefit of all Australians, but apparently not. They are unelected, unrepresentative, self-serving, self-regulagating, and answerable only to themselves; an elitist, untouchable monolith. How else can we describe a self proclaimed "Fact Check Unit" without such arrogance? Is this even serious?

While the ABC continues to give free broadcasts of the footy and cricket, they can be perceived as being "for the people". Here they can easily build goodwill amongst the man-in-the-street, enough for them to survive. But find yourself on the wrong side of one of their ideological strongholds and you'll see there's no comeback. There's no avenue for redress. It's no longer cricket. They own the bat and the ball, and they'll bat for as long as they like.

According to recent polling , only half the population ever watches or listens to the ABC.

Unlike its first 20 years when the ABC was a pioneering broadcaster, all the material it broadcasts nowadays is available from alternative sources. Consequently, there is no longer any justification for taxpayer funding of the ABC.

As proposed in the UK in respect of the BBC, future funding of the ABC should be by way of subscription from its watchers/listeners. This would result in the significant benefit of reducing the federal budget deficit by at least $1.2 billion per year.

*According to recent polling , only half the population ever watches or listens to the ABC.*

Which only goes to show that half the population is taken in by the propaganda spewed out by the privately owned commercial money producing machine that is operated by the "big end" of town for their own purposes.
The supposedly "freeview" that is trumpeted at us is a good example of what they can get away with.
Endless repeats of mainly US trash programs on multiple channels that are very liberally laced with commercials.
This is better than the ABC? I don't think so.
OK there is a sprinkling of a certain type of person who could loosely be called Malignant narcissus but they are more than made up for by quality people who are allowed to produce quality programs. A small price to pay.

Robert LePage,
Yours is the voice of elitism at the ABC. You think you are born with the discerning judgement to decide for the rest of us what is 'trash' and what is 'quality'. 

If that means you get to listen to your classical music, while the rest of us happily tune in to our populist, commercial drivel, then there's probably no great harm being done. The government can find a place in supporting what it feels is aspects of minority art and culture worth promoting. But there needs to be some sense that government money is being used following some democratic process.

The real problem is when you take this attitude of yours into the domains of politics, philosophy and religion. Then it's even more telling. I don't want the government telling me what I'm supposed to think. It's not their place to take my tax money, and use it as a baton to beat me around the head philosophically.

What this article highlights is the elitist attitude of those who think they know better than the rest of us, and are more able to decide which are 'facts' and which are the 'lies'.

With regard to the misreporting of facts, what most ABC-listening believers of anthropogenic global warming fail to realise is that the ABC censors out all views that oppose its entrenched green-Left biased position on climate change. The ABC goes out of its way to conceal the fact that there is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming.

Yet, sadly, Minister Turnbull naively believes that he can rely on the ABC Board to restore balanced reporting by the ABC.

Yes Raycom, but then Minister Turnbull also naively believes in the global warming fraud, so is probably secretly in step with the ABC.

We do need to get the ABC of the taxpayers neck, but we also need to get rid of Turnbull.

Dan S de Merengue:

If the cap fits?

The ABC Fact Check unit relies on 'experts' that have extensive links with the Wilderness Society, despite also being engaged by the Government to independently verify the Wilderness society claims.

The ABC fact check unit did not question their claims of only considering industrial logging from 1960's to dispute the Prime Minister's statement. Tasmania has had a logging industry since settlement, first with manual convict labour, and then powered sawmills. Places like Recherche, the Picton, Esperance, the Weld, and the Huon.

For the a key part of the WHA extension, industry was present well before 1960. The Derwent Valley Paper Company was established in 1931 and soon developed and used timber resources from the upper Derwent and Florentine Valleys. This company was absorbed by Australian Newsprint Mills Limited when that company was registered in Tasmania in March 1938.

Construction of a mill at Boyer, on the banks of the Derwent River and downstream from New Norfolk, commenced in August 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and that complex was completed within eighteen months. The first paper was produced in February 1941, at a time when the war had resulted in a severe shortage of paper in Australia. An historical account together with a map of the concession area can be accesed at http://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/sites/default/files/shado/Learned%20Groups/Interest%20Groups/Engineering%20Heritage/Register/Boyer%20Newsprint%20Mill%20Nomination.pdf The map on page 2 covers the Upper florentine, the Styx, wyld's Crag and Butler's Gorge.

A video of the the type of harvesting ignored by the ABC in their rush to discredit the Prime minister is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW4kcuUvsJk

Thank you Mark for your article on this. For those of us connected to the industry in Tasmania this Fact Check failure is a major insult that can only be repaired by a full and proper retraction and explanation of the real facts.
We then need a an explanation of how the Liberal government is not going far enough, and how the 2013 WHA extension is illegitimate, and based on fraud and corruption by a network of academics who are also green activists who deceived by misrepresentation of the facts and who deceived by omission.
I suggest there needs to be a review of who is occupying seats on the Australian branch of the IUCN, and how they are contributing to the international embarrassment of Australia, and how they are bringing the UN, UNESCO and the World Heritage Centre into disrepute.

FACT CHECKING WONT EXPOSE BIAS
MORE FOR ABC TO IGNORE

FROM

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16191&page=0

WHERE THIS LINK WAS REFERENCED
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130301122256.htm

ITS A Complete fraud..but thats how govt declare war onb its kids
FOR REVENUE RAISING..its pathetic..aunty sells us out/and i cant reply even for 20 hours/post limits

but heck..lets lay it at abc feet
see if abc even notes it/they sure helped set the lies in place

abc is a DISGRACE

setting it up..a study was quoted
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130301122256.htm

<<..New study shows cannabis effects on driving skills>>

WRONG/MISLEADING....
a DELIBERATE LIE/read on..THINK WHY?

<<..In this paper, 30 male chronic daily cannabis smokers resided on a secure research unit for up to 33 days, with daily blood collection.>>

ie locked up in jail..or prison..or phyc unit or qunatonimo bay for all we know

please/mote
no mention..of measuring..'driving'..skills
[thats not what this fraud exposes..its what it was turned into

so..what/was really tested

<<..These results demonstrate,..[for the first time]>>

lol first time my butt..pure..[RUBBISH]
but lets calm down..and read on..

IMPORTANT

<<..that cannabinoids..*can be detected in blood of..*chronic daily cannabis smokers..*during a month of sustained..*abstinence.>>

ie locked-up/IN JAIL/INSTITUTION
IE non driving..

yet..here is summery

<<..Cannabis is second only to alcohol..for causing impaired driving and motor vehicle accidents...>>

of the tested causes..
[eg..prescribed meds wernt tested]

further if its in our blood for 30 days..and no other cause/was tested/report is biased..but more is this misleads that which actually was tested[they tested..cannAbinoids..after abstinence..ie.not driving skills/impairment

further..the research bias source.isn't noted
ie 99%..of the tests showed booze..1%..cannabis
[but only booze and cannabis was tested for..[

so yES IT CAME IN SECOND]..BY Design
in a two test biased..disgrace

further fraud/expose..CONTINUES

again/note what WAS tested..wasnt driving skill
wasn't coming in second..but measured cannabis without smoking

[please note vegetable intake not mentioned..5 vegetables HAVE CANNABINOIDS[POTATO/TOMATO/LETTUCE]..SO IF THEY ATE THEM..THATS WHAT WAS BEING MEASURED.and dont think they noted that

but worse..they found a way..to include kids
[note/no age MENTIONED..

<<..In 2009,..12.8% of young adults..>>
BUT NO DOUDT 1ST YEAR.DRIVERS[THESE THINGS USUALY DONE..IN SCHOOLS.

]SELF.<<../reported driving under the influence..of illicit drugs>>

Failing to name any/but the new drugs of choice are not cannabis
yet here we are/how pathetically one eyed

<<.and in..the 2007 National Roadside Survey...*more drivers tested positive for drugs..than for alcohol.>>

again drugs
not cannabis

yet somehow/the flip is made..

<<. These cannabis smokers had a 10-fold increase in car crash injury..>>

who were we compared to..boozers>/the clear and present danger/..no

<<.compared with infrequent or nonusers>>

then note this..<<..after adjustment>>..
yeah/adjustment for what..booze?

<<..after adjustment for blood alcohol concentration.>>

its pathetic/the lies needed

so what was really
tested?

<<..New research appearing online today in Clinical Chemistry, the journal of AACC, shows that cannabis can be detected in the blood of daily smokers for a month after last intake.>>>

were salad eaters excluded?

<<..The scientific data in this paper by Bergamaschi et al. can provide real help in the public safety need for a drugged driving policy that reduces the number of drugged driving accidents on the road.>>

by avoiding testing/or mentioning testing 'impared driving skills'

again with the spin/unrelated..to/the actual info tested

<<>Cannabis is second only to alcohol..>>

because prescribed drug driving is ok/or\.of no concern
GOVT EVEN pays for..'them'..then even protects/..them..[not us]

ts pathetic/..*..\..its..abc..fatcat/fact checking

FACT-check..yea..i know..ITS A JOKE

Easy to think that the original topic has been lost in this blog. Returning to the site after a brief absence I see unchallenged statements from contributors that more lost in the wilderness than the ABC Fact Check Unit. For example, Mark Poynter is still lost when he responds that "It virtually goes without saying that proposing to delist forest from this area (Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area) because they are not appropriate within a Wilderness WHA" is an absurd proposition, and I think you know it, because those areas were not added to the WHA because of wilderness values in the first place. Do your research and check the nomination document instead of peddling this nonsense about wilderness being a prerequisite for inclusion in this WHA or indeed any other. It is not and you well know that so why peddle this political nonsense.

Let me say it again, wilderness condition is not a prerequisite for inclusion in the Tasmanian Wilderness WHA any more than being rainforest is a prerequisite for being a part of Gondwana Rainforest World Heritage Area and being a reef to be part of the Great Barrier Reef WHA. It is just an identifier that reflects a core theme.

Cinders equally is lost in the wilderness of misinformation created by Poynter, blindly repeating that "For an area to be part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area it first has to be wilderness" And that misrepresentation sets the pattern for much of the rest of your post. The 2013 nomination dossier very clearly outlines the attributes of the areas nominated for inclusion, no mention of wilderness, so dragging wilderness into the debate is pure politics and not based on fact. So who is lost in the wilderness. Poynter and Cinders methinks, not the ABC.

RE-WILDING..MEANS BREAKING
DOWN HADRIANS WALL
HERE IS THE PROCESS..OF RE-WILDING/EVERYTHING..BACK TO 'GREEN'

http://rss.infowars.com/20140410_Thu_Alex.mp3

IT SEEMS TO BE LINKED TO WATER RIGHTS..in this case they taking away the water pipes..[water rights link to grazing/rights/that lead to land rights]..so the Forrest rights tie back to who holds the harvest rights.

importantly the events on this tape will be huge
it/ties into freeman-rights/colonization/land use..and so much more

a point made earlier says land is linked to local.not fed [nor state?]/...authority?..by what right?...community authority..moral authority/possession being 910 the law..

anyhow a living example...but the green/agenda cant prevail
we were given use of this land..for all/unbounded..by such delusions such as Hadrian-ic [sic*]walls?..walls imprison minds..do they fence the nature in or out?

HOW CONSTITUTIONAL IS CONSTITUTED LAW
WHEN..all is returned back to nature/..there can be no more state fictions.protections/illusions not deed nor grant..remaining..at all.

then its dog fight dog..and statuted humanity has evolved..[devolved]....diss-solved..to be no where at all..where does it end?..what are you willing to defend..to what end?

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/04/08/new-report-claims-un-findings-on-climate-change-is-just-bunch-hot-air/
http://americanfreepress.net/?p=16402
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShJTcIlTna0