This was about Fair Work, not climate change

After working for a Queensland university for almost 30 years, a professor was sensationally sacked after he dared to challenge research linked to climate change, saying it was untested. Lessons need to be learnt from his story, writes Des Houghton.

TO THE wider world outside the courtroom it looked like a battle for free speech and a test about whether or not climate change was destroying the holiest of holies, the Great Barrier Reef.

Inside, however, an army of lawyers was not arguing about the fate of the corals but whether the Fair Work Act had been breached, and whether Professor Peter Ridd had been unfairly dismissed – and unlawfully so – by James Cook University.

For both parties it was an embarrassing, dirty-linen slugfest over interpretations of employment laws.

In the plush environs of the Federal Circuit Court, Judge Sal Vasta found against James Cook University and in favour of Peter Ridd.

Vasta ruled JCU breached the Fair Work Act by unlawfully dismissing Prof Ridd in a breach of its enterprise agreement.

He ordered JCU pay Prof Ridd about $1.2 million as compensation for past and future economic loss, general compensation, and penalties.

“In this case, Professor Ridd has endured over three years of unfair treatment by JCU – an academic institution that failed to respect the rights to intellectual freedom that Professor Ridd had as per clause 14 of the enterprise agreement,” Judge Vasta said.

To me, it looked like the university didn’t just have egg on its face but an omelette on its head.

Prof Ridd was unlawfully sacked after being censured three times for criticising his colleagues and the university. He claimed the science regarding the effects of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef was not subject to adequate quality assurance. And the court heard he said so publicly on Sky News in interviews with Peta Credlin and Alan Jones.

In emails to journalists, Prof Ridd suggested reported research regarding the degradation of the Reef by sediment and global warming was not reliable. He questioned the methodology used and the conclusions drawn.

In one of his orders Vasta said: “The court rules that 17 findings against him made by the university, two speech directions, five confidentially directions, the no satire direction, the censure and the final censure given by the university and the termination of Professor Ridd were all unlawful.”

Professor Peter Ridd.

Prof Ridd was at JCU for 29 years until his sacking in May, 2018. He was the Professor and Head of Physics in the College of Science and Engineering. He had managed the university’s marine geophysical laboratory for 15 years.

Prof Ridd’s plight reminded me of other academics who have been hounded for challenging the “progressive” orthodoxy.

Dr Susan Crockford, a polar bear expert, was pushed out of the University of Victoria in Canada for saying polar bears may not be facing extinction because on her count their numbers were growing.

The Thought Police are on the march in other so-called halls of enlightenment.

Germaine Greer was banned from speaking at UK universities where she planned to discuss transgender politics. Really? One of the great thinkers of the last 40 years silenced?

Jordan Peterson, the eloquent psychology professor from Toronto, was also censored. He was barred from the University of Cambridge because of his conservative, but not terribly outlandish views on gender and social issues.

I spoke to Prof Ridd recently at a public forum and he was guarded in what he said. However, he did not show any signs he was a climate change denier. In fact I came away with the idea he was, like most of us, a luke-warmist but not a catastrophist.

Prof Ridd aroused attention when he questioned reports in scientific journals that corals at Stone Island at the mouth of Bowen Harbour in the Whitsundays were dead and had been reduced to mudflats.

Prof Ridd’s reputation got a remarkable boost recently when marine biologist Dr Jennifer Marohasy reported the same reef was in fact alive.

She dived with a team that filmed 25ha of healthy corals. I’ve watch her video on YouTube and to this untrained eye it was compelling.

Prof Ridd also told me something quite off-putting. He doubted many claims by university researchers whose untested findings are reported in the media as if they are gospel. He told me 50 per cent of claims made wold be unlikely to stand up to scrutiny. So journalists may unwittingly be writing fake news while hindering free speech.

Prof Ridd still hasn’t got his money. JCU has launched an appeal.

The Institute of Public Affairs criticised JCU’s decision to spend any more taxpayers’ money on the case.

The uni’s reputation will be hit, whatever happens. Even if JCU miraculously wins the appeal it will be accused of crushing a bloke who dared to call it as he saw it.

Des Houghton is a media consultant and a former editor of The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail