Libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm, pictured here:
sorry, I meant here:
is in the news today for having appointed Helen Dale, famous for getting into heaps of trouble for pretending to have a family background that was useful for promoting her novel. Well, she does have umpteen law degrees, seems to do nothing useful with them, and her blog is a bore, so she's qualified, but listen to what Leyonhjelm says about the fraudulent episode in Dale's past:
“I was impressed that she extended a work of fiction into the authorship, which I thought was entirely appropriate,” Senator Leyonhjelm told The Australian. “I regarded the controversy at the time as both absurd and amusing.”
He's a nut.
Update: more "fraudulently passing yourself off as someone you're not for notoriety and financial gain is hilarious" analysis from Senator L:
"I recall at the time thinking it was hilarious, it was a big joke and
she kept up the fiction for quite a while. Then, when they realised she
was pulling their leg they turned on her, which I thought was very
unkind."
Update 2: I'll make a prediction: she will not be in the job for more than a year or two.
Update 3: David Crowe does some sort of sucking up today for having released the story early, or something like that?
Yesterday we learned that
Paul "magic water" Sheehan has been to a libertarian conference, and also seems to think Ms Dale is the bees knees? He notes this about a paper she gave:
Dale's presentation focused on social changes caused by technology, not
expensive social engineering. Among many examples was a correlation
between the removal of lead from petrol, paint and cosmetics and a
decline in crime. Practising law, she saw government regulation
and compulsion as frequently having both adverse and unintended
consequences.
Well, I hope her paper then went on to note that it was
government regulation that forced the move to unleaded petrol, as I have the distinct recollection that there was resistance to the policy from motoring associations and oil companies. I would like to see what the IPA was saying about it at the time, although, to be honest, I don't know that was as intensely ideological then as it is now.
Update 4: Hey, I find something good to say - sort of - about Helen Dale's views as a libertarian. She
wrote only late last year:
5. Libertarians in particular need to drop their widespread refusal to accept the reality of climate change. It makes us look
like wingnuts and diverts attention from the larger number of greenies
who spew pseudoscience on a daily basis. That said, don’t confuse real
science with greenie catastrophizing. When Matt Ridley pointed out (a) that climate change is real, (b) it is currently having beneficial effects, and (c) is likely to continue to do so for some time, he got a bucket of turds dumped on his head by both sides. Don’t do that.
So, on the "up" side she should be off side with everyone who posts at Catallaxy then, her very very very good friend (he keeps telling us) Sinclair Davidson, Judith Sloan (who takes every opportunity to ridicule scientists and bodies pushing for a serious response to climate change), Kates, Moran, etc etc.
On the downside - one of the main figures she should be skeptical of is Matt Ridley, but she appears not to be.
And more downside - she's still happy to take a job with a Senator for a party whose official policy is to sit on the fence and do nothing because, you know, it kinda hates government doing things anyway...
36 comments:
I'm not sure how you define 'useful' but Helen has been a corporate lawyer in Scotland. You can be such a twit, steve.
Jason
Hmm. Her Wikipedia entry doesn't indicate much experience as a corporate lawyer.
Furthermore, she now, from what I can make out, thinks her episode of fraud was justified.
http://tinyurl.com/nw38u28
Sorry, but I don't trust her or her explanations and excuses for what she did, even if she was treated in some (limited) unfair respect by some on the left luvvy side...
I also have not forgotten the Great Pig Caper of 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/nobx8eq
She is obviously a brilliant lady. Just finds it hard to differentiate fact from fiction sometimes.
Why didn't he simply pick up Humpreys or some equivalent
Homer
Not for nothing, but you're criticising people for being unable to differentiate fact from fiction?
Have you ever looked in the mirror, you imbecilic slob.
You deserve a really good beating, Paxton.
err she did.
you do all the time.
Remember the NBN at all?
You really do put your foot in your mouth all the time
Shut up homer, you imbecile. Go make wooden toys.
yep there are plenty more of those JC.
you've really become a nasty old coot in your twilight years, haven't you Homer?
Jason
You can't deny her obviously high intellect and capacity for work but these are mitigated by lapses in judgement, also on record.
rog
Just found Guy Rundle's skeptical take on Ms Dale's claims about the origin of her book.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2014/06/26/rundle-dales-worst-problem-was-anti-semitism-not-demidenko/?wpmp_switcher=mobile&wpmp_tp=0
sorry how am I nasty Jason?
I simply reminded a moron of one of his many blunders?
Jason, this feels awkward because I take it you have long considered her a friend.
Her relationship with the truth may well not matter much in a job as a political adviser - look at Hilary Clinton's enhanced imagination about some of the events in her life, for example.
But what I find very odd is Leyonjhelm's claimed reaction that her conduct at that time was all a laugh. Given the serious debate swirling around the book at the time about whether it was anti-Semitic or not, I think he must be about the only person in the land who thought it an amusing ruse.
It helps confirm my view that the truly dedicated libertarian is nearly always an eccentric with dubious judgement.
I am with rog.
I am not sure she will be suited to political work.
"It helps confirm my view that the truly dedicated libertarian is nearly always an eccentric with dubious judgement."
Have you admitted the climate models are fucked and that their predictions don't confirm the raw data?
Listen my ignorant friend. you said you couldn't get the data. you can.
Your judgement on who to believe on climate change in your backside, JC.
Stepford
So you now say the models align with the data? Is that right?
Shut up Homer, you moron. Go tell someone skanky ho is an Asian warlord's mistress.
Hey I was wrong - I was Googling around and found that Judith Sloan, in a Catallaxy thread in 2012 where Sinclair urged everyone to read Dale's book, said that she found the fuss about her fabrications at the time to be funny.
This says a lot about the completely off kilter judgement of these Right wing identities, then and now.
steve
Helen has plenty of left wing ALP and even Green voting Facebook friends who have a sense of perspective over the whole 'hoax' thing so I think you are giving us righties too much credit.
As for the anti-semitic canard by 'Ghee' Rundle, that is the most absurd part of it all. None of the people who awarded her the prize were anti-semites. I believe one was even Jewish. and if Helen writing a novel from the first person perspective of an anti-semite makes her one, then I guess that makes Nabokov a kiddy fiddler.
The link between anti-communism and anti-semitism in Eastern Europe is unfortunate but documented and that is in character with the characters of her novel. and while Ukrainian anti-semitism existed long before Bolshevism it is also an unfortunate fact that Jews were over-represented among Bolsheviks (just as scholars of modern China will tell you and I'm not offended by it, my group the Hakka were over-represented among Chinese Communist Party and Red Army members) and this contributed to it (as the novel suggested), just as Jews are over-represented among libertarians today - because Jews tend to be overrepresented among the most articulate intelligentsia of new intellectual movements.
Jason
Jason, I don't profess to have a firm opinion on the anti-semitic issue with the book. I haven't read it, but I note that those who did find the book very problematic included Gerard Henderson, Robert Manne, Barry Cohen and (according to Manne) virtually all Jewish reviewers (with a couple of notable exceptions.) Rundle goes along with Manne's (and Henderson's) criticism, which was based on the book giving a very wrong impression of history. The book was endorsed by the League of Rights; not that their judgement is always reliable, of course.
So let's acknowledge that Rundle is not, by any stretch of the imagination, being a dilettante or on his own about this.
Yet, as Rundle acknowledges, the book also had its defenders, including writers and journalists of the soft Left, and figures of the Right. It was a weird mix, and is no doubt part of the reason why the matter has been the subject of so much analysis.
While I don't have a perfectly settled view of which side is right, I do note that those on the "detecting anti-semitism" side of the ledger don't just have their own interpretation to rely on.
It appears it was reported there were friends and acquaintances of hers who went on the record that she was bit oddball about Jews:
"A former President of the Queensland Young Nationals has recalled Demidenko as a vocal apologist for alleged Nazi war criminals. And Demidenko's former friend Natalie Jane Prior says that Demidenko "has some sort of strange hang-up about Jews". "
Her ex boyfriend, who helped her in research, also claimed she misrepresented Jewish role in Ukraine.
And even Dale herself has alluded to an anti Jewish bias (of a Lefty kind, she claims) from some of her early journalism, while being adamant that she isn't anti-semitic now. (I'm not sure when she says she changed.) She also claims to have been wildly left wing, pushed into the arms of the Right by how awful the Left literati were to her about her book controversy. At least one person who knew her at Uni says that was news to him.
Continued:
So, my take on this is the matter is much more complicated than you seem to believe.
But the point of referring to Rundle today was to note that he finds Dales' claims that she was inspired to write the book by a chance meeting of a man with a Nazi tattoo (which she recognised) clipping his hedge.
I see today that she's has claimed that for quite a long time, and is still claiming it in 2014.
Rundle explains why he finds this very improbable. Indeed, so do I.
If someone like her ex boyfriend, could confirm it, well that would be different. If he has, let me know; but from what I can see on the net, his only evidence in the matter hurt her reputation, not assisted it.
Helen has made many, many claims about her life which many people have contradicted. Indeed, reading today, I could point you to contradictions she has made about herself. Most importantly, it seems to me not to be a case of someone who has acknowledged lying under pressure when young or having a real psychological issue which she has overcome. No, it seems pretty much the opposite, with nearly all of her autobiographical detail being exculpatory in intent.
I see that a few years ago she said she may well have had Aspergers as a child; that might explain a lot, and I see that some people who knew her at uni thought she was very much a loner with really strong opinions. But whether that condition is sometimes associated with the type of long lived semi-fantasy/deception she did as a young adult is something I am not aware of.
I remain puzzled by people who watched the controversy unfold at the time and could think it was funny, or genuinely believe that it was a harmless deception on her part.
It indicated to me a young woman with some pretty serious issues, and I am not at all convinced that to this day she is reliable on matters of personal autobiography.
That may not affect her work at all; she might be great company now too, for all I know. She certainly seems to have been rehabilitated in the mind of many in the political blogosphere since she got into law.
If only I felt I had grounds to now trust her own accounts of her past, I might feel differently about her too.
But as it stands, I do not find myself liking at all the personality that comes across in her discussions about herself.
This might be unfair - judging people by media performance often is. But sometimes, people have written so much about themselves, or been interviewed so often, that you can't help but start to feel confident about your assessment. And that's how it is for my attitude towards her.
Some links, to show I'm not making things up:
http://tinyurl.com/k6wc9xr
http://tinyurl.com/kmutstc
http://tinyurl.com/pj757ud
http://tinyurl.com/8k395k4
http://tinyurl.com/pk566wc
http://tinyurl.com/ptzwb6h
http://tinyurl.com/nw38u28
She was 20 years old , stepford. Even if she did say have antiemetic feelings it was a time when she was quite young.
Lord, you're pedantic twit.
And Ghee Rundle is an imbecile demonstrating jealousy. ... Jealousy he will never win an award for anything other than being a fat clown.
How long must Darville wear this millstone around her neck? Some people are so unforgiving. Darville hasn't helped, her recent appearance on Insight and the account she provided indicated a refusal to just fess up and say, I stuffed up, I did a stupid thing. Sorry, let's move on.
Nonetheless it is churlish and puerile to keep making that event life the defining thing in her life.
Assess her by who she is today.
David L. is probably relying on her world class expertise in relation to same sex marriage. I believe he is preparing legislation in relation to that. Good luck to both of them.
BTW, while I do not agree with David L's political or economic philosophy I find him a refreshing change from the usual crop of pollies. I hope he gets another term because on current indications he is the type of person we need more in Canberra.
I agree with John on Helen D.
I think she will find it hard in terms of real politics of which she has little experience.
Legal Brilliance without political smarts has no great precedent. Ask Doc Evatt. Thru a seance of course!
Do shut up homer. No one wants you in their corner. Get lost.
An antiemetic is what's needed after some of your comments, JC.
John: your first paragraph explains why not it is being revived - Dale herself appears happy to keep reasserting over the years her dubious explanations of long ago.
As for her expertise on gay marriage - oh please, she wrote an essay and got a small prize for it, and wrote some blog posts (I think.) More generally, she obviously likes study and does well at it. She appears to have been working for a year or two in some corporate position. She gives talks at libertarian and skeptic meetings which impress the likes of Paul Sheehan (?) and other libertarian attendees (who I've noticed, seem to spend a lot of time telling each other on twitter how good they are.)
Can't say that anything I've read of hers has struck me as particularly wonderful. As an essayist, I find her writing style dull.
So I'm afraid that I have long felt this emperor has no clothes.
As for Leyonhjelm: no. Don't agree with you on him either. A Fairfax profile of him indicates quite a touch of the Rudd about him - many people prepared to say he is authoritarian in style and a polarising figure in private (within parties he has been involved.) And as you say, his actual economic (and many of his other) policies are seriously objectionable.
A Senator who I do respect for his independence of thought and general non-nuttiness is Xenophon.
JC, go and tell SDFC that the NBN is not on the balance sheet.
you might also find out when Latvia joined the Euro!
Oh great stepford, you're now doing variations of spell check.
The rest of your missive is objectionable ideological pedantry at its worst.
As for the Greek Xylophone .... hahahahahahahahhaahha Of course you'd appreciate his stupidity.
Piss off off Homer, you moron
Hey Homes, remember the Reich Roll?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Uaml0iEmw
JC showing off his vast intellect and use of the english language.
wow, you show up his mistakes and he sears. poor sod.
By the way the models have not been shown to be out of wack. another thing he has got wrong. Such a pity he missed going to primary school.
still believe in climate mitigation steve? it's too damned late to do anything. we'll just have to wear it. tho I do want something done about ocean acidification so my seafood supply doesn't dry up
Jason
Jason, I'm pretty sure the expert evidence is against you on the "its too late" line. If climate sensitivity is at the lower end of the scale, especially, then there is scope for seeing a maximum global increase that would allow a more do-able timeline for some type of mitigation that may be inevitable. (Of course, the problem being that talk of lower sensitivity leads to the likes of Ridley to argue that the warming won't hurt anyway. The thing is, the 2 degree limit as being manageable has always been pretty much guess work anyway, as far as I can tell. But it is still likely to be much better than a possible 2.5 or 3. We don't have the luxury of waiting to see where sensitivity falls before taking reasonable steps to help ensure it is on the lower side of what is possible.)
I think it is true that it is too late to do anything about progressively rising sea levels to what will be city ruining levels within a couple of hundred years; but again, reducing CO2 may make the inevitable more manageable.
As for the sulphur in the skies mitigation that those Freakonomics guys were rah rah about - no one has any idea, really, how well it will work and with what consequences. It's quite likely to be controversial for its unintended consequences (one country cooler, another with drought.) I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, but it is far preferable to work on reducing the CO2 in the first place.
And the other big reason - ocean acidification - remains as valid as ever, with no reasonable prospect of mitigation being realist or possible for that for entire oceans.
A decade ago now I was speaking someone who was starting a Mech. Engineering degree and I replied he should study Civil and specialise in building dykes.
Nonetheless to do nothing is to ignore the possibility of future technological developments that may enable us to much more aggressively address the problems. The solutions will be long term and basing an argument on what exists today ignores the possibility that much more will be possible tomorrow. To give up now is to give up on developing future technologies that may prove vital.
So we should be continuing to address the problem. It may give future generations that extra edge to avoid some of the consequences. But hey, I don't have children so that future is not my concern.
Sorry, I slipped up again in that I used mitigation in the wrong climate science sense. Given that the term "flood mitigation project" really means adapting to the rain water that will come anyway, I often slip up with my use of mitigation vs adaptation in term of climate change talk.
Doesn't really change my point, though...
Post a Comment