Alas That We All Had Dick Smith’s Clout

Poor Dick Smith. As you probably know by now, the Australian entrepreneur and conservationist – founder of Dick Smith Electronics, Australian Geographic and Dick Smith Foods – was hit by the everyday reality that anyone who dares to question the Left’s narrative on climate becomes a target. For those who haven’t followed the story, I’ll give a quick recount.   

In a radio interview, Smith challenged the CSIRO’s claim that we can run the country on wind and solar alone. He called it out as a lie saying, “No country has ever been able to run entirely on renewables,” he said.”That’s impossible.”

On cue arrived the ‘fact’ checkers, ABC RMIT Fact Check (there are two others). It ‘fact-checked’ Smith by speaking to a few cherry-picked ‘experts’ from around the world who listed Nepal, Paraguay, Albania and Bhutan as examples of countries that have an electricity grid entirely run on renewables. Only, Dick Smith never said he was talking about electricity alone. Electricity forms just a part of the entire energy mix used by any nation, and on that metric, Dick Smith was absolutely correct. Even Nepal, Paraguay, Albania and Bhutan use vast amounts of firewood (for heating and cooking) and fossil fuels (for transport). 

Smith launched a media counterattack. He went on 2GB radio and savaged the fact-checkers, then wrote a public letter to ABC Managing Director David Anderson pointing out the errors in the ‘fact check’ and adding his green credentials for good measure: Smith took part in Australia’s first ‘solar challenge’ car race, drives an EV, and relies heavily on renewables at home. Within hours, ABC RMIT Fact Check had added a correction to its article and issued an apology.

There are three things I want to point out about this fiasco.

Why did ABC RMIT Fact Check not seek a clarification from Dick Smith about what he meant before labelling him a liar? Let’s not kid ourselves because that is exactly what they did – imply he was misleading people with his statement. 

They didn’t do it because it is not their practice to reach out to the person or organisation being fact checked to understand where they are coming from. Fact-checkers don’t see themselves as journalists who have to present both sides of the story. They see themselves more as police, judge and jury all rolled into one. When they pick something you have said for an investigation your motives are already under suspicion. You won’t even know you are being investigated, let alone being allowed the opportunity to explain yourself or get a right of reply. 

The second thing worth pointing out is that being fact checked has real world implications. Australia has three self-appointed ‘fact’ checking organisations: AAP FactCheck, RMIT FactLab and RMIT ABC Fact Check. If they label any public claim made by you as false or misleading, that label will forever appear on all social media posts by anyone sharing the interview / article / blog post in which the claim was made. I’ll leave it to your imagination what that does to anyone’s reputation. Alarmingly, the Albanese government is drafting legislation to counter “misinformation/disinformation” on social media platforms, which could further empower such fact-checkers.) 

The final point worth knowing is that the three Australian fact-checkers have a penchant for going after people on the right side of politics. The Institute of Public Affairs just released research which exhaustively examined all publicly available fact-check investigations posted online (up to February 9, 2024) by all three fact-checkers on three issues about which the right and left sharply diverge: climate change, COVID policy and identity and sexuality. The findings reveal that the investigations favoured left-of-centre politicians 65 per cent of the time, and right-of-centre politicians only 35 per cent of the time. It also found

♦  94 per cent of fact-checking investigations relating to Covid-19 targeted critics of the official response to the pandemic (who, as we know, hav een largely right-leaning or libertarians).

♦ 81 per cent of fact-checking investigations relating to climate change and energy policy targeted critics, who are usually right-leaning. By contrast, almost none of the controversial claims made by activists, such as predictions of imminent catastrophe, are investigated.

♦ Of the 17 investigations into claims relating to identity and sexuality – another policy focus of the Left – 16 investigations targeted critics of the political Left’s positions on these matters.

This fact-checkers’ obsession with the right has real world implications in a democracy where right-leaning individuals form half the country (and hopefully growing!). They should be able to participate freely in the public debate without worrying about their reputations being permanently tarnished by incompetents who cannot tell (or refuse to recognise) the difference between a country’s energy mix and its electricity grid or that it is ridiculous to present underdeveloped countries such as Nepal and Paraguay as in anyway models for Australia. 

The real scandal in the Dick Smith saga is not that the fact-checkers targeted him for his views on Australia’s energy policy but that the only reason his complaints received a belated fair hearing from the ABC is because he could publicly prove his credentials as an EV-hugger and solar-lover. Others aren’t so fortunate.

Nick McGowan is a Liberal member of Victoria’s upper house