One of my mate is a charter pilot, here in Cairns, and flies Tourists around the area doing site seeing.
One day he picks up a job and the customers where a scientist working with JCU studying the GBR a Journo and a politician.
They chartered the flight so the scientist could show the extent of the Coral Bleaching. As he flies over the area all the time his anecdote was,
"hadn't seen such an extent of Coral Bleaching as what happened recently".
He flew them around and they all witnessed the Bleaching from the air.
The Pilot was invited to attend a dinner where the pollie would be speaking to 'GBR interest groups'. He attended.
What came next was surprised him, during the dinner the Pollie address the guest and spoke about what he'd seen during the flight.
What he said was,
"The great Barrier Reef had never been in better condition and the Bleaching claims had been exaggerated..."
My mate was furious, the pollie bare faced lied to everyone. He then tried to find the scientist he took on the flight, but low and behold he wasn't there (probably not invited).
At the end of the night the pollie was doing the rounds shaking peoples hands until he came to the Pilot who said,
"Narh I'm not shaking your hand mate, you just bloody lied to everyone"
A few people were around and heard this go down, so the pollie quickly pissed off and avoided the pilot for the rest of the night.
He said that a few of the people who over heard him asked what the go was and he told them all about the Bleaching and how the pollie lied. They didn't want to hear about it either. The whole 'dinner' was just a giant piss pocket exercise to tell lies about the Bleaching.
So, the truth is out there, just not found in newspapers, or coming out of the mouths of politicians.
