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On a balmy Perth night they came in their hundreds from trains, buses, taxis
and even chauffer driven limousines. They filed quietly upstairs to the
registration desk outside the functions rooms at Perth's Parmelia Hilton hotel.
There was no advertising, just word of mouth, but one hour before the start
time the large hall was rapidly filling up. With half an hour to go, the area
was packed and people were queuing on the stairs.
They came to hear Lord Christopher Monckton, one of the world's chief climate
change sceptics.
Monckton did not disappoint. He gave a good performance with a mixture of
humour, facts, opinions and statistics (perhaps too many statistics and graphs). The crowd
regularly applauded. There was not a murmur of dissent. The overwhelming majority were
already convinced that man-made global warming is a scam. They just wanted
validation of their views and a break from scare mongering distortions of the mainstream media.
The West Australian newspaper in giving a typical media coverage missed the
importance of the
event. It gave a small down beat story on page four of the paper. The West's reporter referred
to a "500-plus crowd". The organisers
and the Parmelia made it clear that the capacity of the function room was 690.
With many standing, the room held well over 700, with 300 overflow into
an adjacent room (watching via video) and another 200 turned away.
For 1200-plus people to turn-out for an un-advertised lecture by a climate
change sceptic is astonishing, particularly as radio station 6PR was
warning during the day not to come as the event was over-booked. It should start
alarm bells ringing for the Rudd government.
The audience demographic was very interesting; at least 80% of the audience
appeared to be aged 45 and over. After the event a former Labor cabinet minister explained the
paucity of young attendees, "For over 20 years school children have been
indoctrinated with the global warming scare", he said. "And young
indoctrinated teachers are repeating the indoctrination. Their minds are closed.
These people believe in global warming and wouldn't come to a talk like this".
A senior school teacher in attendance supported this view. "The kids are
scared. They don't understand global warming, but they are scared", she
said. "They are worried about what is going to happen to the world and to
them".
Prime Minister Rudd should be very worried about the over-45s demographic,
they may well be his nemesis at the forthcoming election. And when the young
demographic learn they have been conned, it is very likely they will turn on
him.
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