Piers Akerman | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1950-06-12)12 June 1950 (age 75) |
| Education | Year 10 Certificate Guildford Grammar School |
| Occupation | Columnist /political commentator |
| Spouse | Suzanne |
Piers Akerman (born 12 June 1950) is an Australian columnist and conservative commentator for the conservative Sydney newspaperThe Daily Telegraph.
Akerman was born inWewak,Papua New Guinea, the third son in a family of four children[1] of John, an Australian Government doctor, andEve Akerman (d. 2003), a newspaper columnist and reviewer.[1] The family left PNG forIndia in 1951, before returning toPerth, Western Australia.[1]
He attendedGuildford Grammar School, where he remained until his expulsion, when he was "asked to leave" following a dispute with theheadmaster. He spent the last few months of his schooling atChrist Church Grammar School but did not complete hisfinal exams.[2]
Akerman worked for a time at British national newspaper,The Times, and spent ten years as aforeign correspondent in theUnited States. On returning to Australia, he was editor ofThe Advertiser,Adelaide (1988) andThe Sunday Herald Sun,Melbourne (1990). During 1990-92 he was editor-in-chief of theHerald & Weekly Times group in Melbourne before becoming a vice-president ofFox News, USA in 1993.[3]
Mark Latham was known to weave complaints about Akerman's writing into his speeches.[4]
Periodically, Akerman was a regular panelist onABC Television's political commentary programInsiders, until his 16 June 2013 participation. This incident involved unfounded allegations about the then Prime Minister's de facto partner.[5] Akerman had also appeared on the ABC's political programQ&A.[6]
Akerman is aclimate change denier with a history of public opposition to acarbon price. He approvingly quotes the work of theNongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), run byFred Singer.[7]
In a November 2006 article inThe Daily Telegraph, Akerman mis-quoted senior IPCC scientistJohn T. Houghton saying "Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen", attributing the quotation to his 1994 bookGlobal Warming, The Complete Briefing. The mis-quote became widely used amongclimate change deniers to argue that climate change scientists showed a propensity to exaggerate their case. However, the mis-quote does not appear in any edition of the book. Houghton denied saying any such thing and believes the opposite to be true, commenting "I would never say we should hype up the risk of climate disasters in order to get noticed." In February 2010, Akerman responded by citing a September 1995 article in which Houghton was correctly quoted as saying "If we want a good environmental policy in the future, we'll have to have a disaster", adding that this passage was not much different to the misquotation Houghton had distanced himself from.[8] A subsequent report byMedia Watch noted that Houghton's full remark did not carry the same meaning: "If we want a good environmental policy in the future we'll have to have a disaster. It's like safety on public transport. The only way humans will act is if there's been an accident."[9]
Five former employees, three of whom agreed to be named, have said they witnessed Akerman "sexually harass" female members of his staff, according to a 1991 story inThe Sunday Age.[2]
One of the most controversial episodes in Akerman's life was his alleged threat to assault the literary editor ofThe Advertiser,Shirley Stott Despoja.[2] The dispute ended before a full bench of the Supreme Court where the newspaper appealed against Stott Despoja's successful worker's compensation claim for stress-related sick leave pay. Stott Despoja alleged: "I was physically threatened by the editor while alone with him in an office in a dispute over my work". The appeal byThe Advertiser was dismissed and Stott Despoja won her $4,000 claim.[2]
In 2006, former director of NRMA Richard James Talbot was awarded a $200,000 defamation payout plus costs. In regards to one point the judgment read "The inaccuracies of fact by the defendant [Akerman] on this topic are gross".[10]
In March 2018 Akerman suggested thatgay people need to apologise forchild sex abuse.[11]
In 2017, Akerman wrote that there were more pressing issues worrying Australians than voting on the issue ofsame-sex marriage.[12]
In 2018 he called the victory of the YES inAustralian Marriage Law Postal Survey "a victory for left's hate".[13]
Unlike the hysterical IPCC report, which was riddled with errors and mis-statements, ignored available scientific data, and has already been contradicted in several major areas by more recent research, the [NIPCC] authors don't say that anthropogenic greenhouse gases cannot produce some warming, but they do say that the evidence shows that they are not playing a major role.