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UNDA defends Students roll up the shirt sleeves to revegetate the fairways intellectual freedom over Monckton Discourse, controversy, comes with the territory of academic freedom, UNDA academics say as they reject efforts to shut down prominent climate sceptic’s lecture BY ANTHONY BARICH THE University of Notre Dame Australia’s reputation as a credible academic institution was not tarnished but strengthened by hosting controversial climate sceptic Lord Christopher Monckton on 30 June in Fremantle, University organisers said. The university “came under quite a bit of pressure internally and externally to cancel the event”, UNDA College of Business Executive Dean Prof Chris Doepel, who organised the event, told The Record. He said the event has not damaged UNDA: “in fact, many people have perceived our independence as being a very strong virtue … that we have in fact allowed someone with a contrarian point of view to be heard and be questioned”. This pressure included an open letter signed by 50 academics organised by University of WA post-graduate student Natalie Latter accusing Lord Monckton of promoting “widely discredited fictions about climate change”.
Giving back: Merida Cooke (YCS National Coordinator and Big Help Mob Ambassador) plants trees as over 140 youth aged 15 to 30 helped revegetate the fairways at Lake Claremont Golf Course in three hours recently. Story - Page 7 PHOTO: COURTESY VICKY BURROWS
Bishops to launch groundbreaking document on prisons BY ANTHONY BARICH
Anti-Lord Monckton protestors keep vigil outside Notre Dame University in Fremantle last week. PHOTO: ANTHONY BARICH
While it also accused him of distorting the research of “countless scientists”, Lord Monckton made his own allegations against scientific authorities. “Each of us has the responsibility of coming to our own conclusions after absorbing knowledge from all reliable sources,” Mannkal Economics Foundation chairman Ron Manners, who gave the vote of thanks after Lord Monckton’s address, said. “(Lord Monckton’s) reflections should enable us to skip past the ‘deafening daily static’ from so many vested interests”. Lord Monckton told over 200 guests at UNDA that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change changed its 2001 recommendation that “long-term predictions of future climate states is [sic] not possible” to “the body of evidence points to global warming” due to one man rewriting the original report, which was in consultation Please turn to Page 7 Editorial - Page 8
PRAYER and practical action are being urged by parishes ahead of the Australian Bishops’ groundbreaking Social Justice Sunday Statement on Prisons and the Justice System due on 25 September. Perth Catholic Social Justice Council (CSJC) executive officer Terry Quinn told The Record that while each state has responsibility for corrective services and the justice system, there are concerns and problems in the justice system which are common throughout Australia. These concerns include Indigenous over-representation in prisons; high recidivism rates; prisoner health - well below the national average; the link between mental health and imprisonment and the link between alcohol and drug addiction and imprisonment. “These are just some of the issues faced by prisoners and their families, by prison authorities and other professionals, including prison chaplains, working in the area,” said Mr Quinn, who is also a prison chaplain at Wooroloo Prison Farm. “While we do not know yet (exactly) what the Bishops will say in their statement, we do know that often the decisions of courts and prisoners’ review panels are applied most punitively
to Indigenous people, those with mental disabilities and younger offenders. I hope the statement will address these issues. “This is the first time in many years that the Bishops have made a national statement on the state of the criminal justice system in Australia.” Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide confirmed on 1 July that the Bishops’ 2011 Social Justice Sunday statement would be titled Building bridges, not walls: Prisons and he justice system. He said the statement would address five key challenges relating to the criminal justice system: • fear campaigns about law and order; • adequate support for people coming out of prison; • social factors that can contribute to crime; • the dignity of prisoners; and • realistic alternatives to incarceration. “No crime can diminish the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of God,” Archbishop Wilson said. “In our parishes and communities, let us consider how we can offer support and make a difference for our brothers and sisters in prison and seeking
bridges to a new life.” The Perth CSJC have prepared bulletin notices and suggested Prayers of the Faithful to use on the weekend Masses of the four Sunday of June, July, August and September to encourage parishioners to think and pray about prisoners, victims of crime and their families in the lead-up to the Bishops’ Statement. The parish bulletin notices include testimonials from parents of prisoners and links to the Social Justice Sunday Statement. In cases where parishes have already prepared Prayers of the Faithful well ahead of time, parish priests and liturgy committees have been urged to consider adding additional petitions that the Perth CSJC suggested. Broome Bishop Christopher Saunders, chair of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, has played a major role in the Statement and said he gained extra insight into these issues when he addressed a 29 May 2010 Law and Order Forum at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle. Panellists at the forum, including Chief Justice Wayne Martin and Police Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan, agreed that criminal justice should lead to social justice by empowering families and communities to tailor solutions. Keeping mental illness in prison - Page 9