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THE Australian science community has thrown down the gauntlet to the
government. The final report of the Chief Scientist on the nation’s science
capability was presented last week to the responsible minister, Nick Minchin. It
calls for sweeping structural changes and a major injections of funds.

In response, Minchin promised an “innovation action plan” early next year.
But there will have to be considerable action to meet the expectations raised by
the review.

After releasing a discussion paper in August, Chief Scientist Robin Batterham
held public consultations around the country. He received hundreds of written
submissions together with what he called “an unprecedented letter of support
from industry leaders and Academe”, published in daily newspapers two months
ago.

While the papers also ran predictably naïve columns from hardline
economists arguing that we should trust the magic of the market, most editorials
recognised the need to invest in innovation. So there is widespread support for
the basic message of Batterham’s report, The Chance to Change, that
serious investment is needed in the science and technology base for Australia to
be part of the growing knowledge-based economy.

The report argues for a dramatic increase in spending on research, education
and commercialisation. Some of the structural changes it advocates are
contentious. Batterham wants government science agencies to have access to
competitive grant funds and also to introduce a formal process of priority
setting by the Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council.

But the real question is whether the government will use some of its huge
surplus for a A$2 billion investment in the future. That’s little more
than it is spreading around regional Australia in a pre-election splurge of road
building.

Building the future is more important than repairing roads in marginal
electorates. The ball is now in the government’s court—and the spectators
are watching keenly.

THE Australian government came out badly from the sixth conference of parties
to the climate change convention (COP6) in The Hague. It threw its lot in with
the small “Umbrella” group blocking progress toward implementation of the 1997
Kyoto protocol.

Australia joined the US in arguing for generous interpretations of the
“loopholes” in the Kyoto agreement. This would have allowed the worst polluters
large increases in greenhouse gas emissions. These arguments were understandably
unacceptable to most of the world. After all, the idea of Kyoto was to achieve a
small reduction in emissions.

I had the depressing experience of discussing the Australian government’s
stance on television with a group which included the Minister for Forestry and
Conservation, Wilson Tuckey. He enthusiastically promoted the case for wider
loopholes or, as he put it, more generous off-sets for increasing emissions of
greenhouse gases.

Lyn Allison of the Australian Democrats, who chaired a Senate committee that
recently reported on greenhouse, drew on her report to refute Tuckey’s claim
that the government was taking a responsible line. His response was to turn on a
kind of behaviour that is now quite unacceptable—he resorted to abuse and
called her a “dopey woman”.

I hope the Australian government develops a better informed and more
responsible policy position in the next six months. Even in the crude calculus
of traditional economics which dominates government thinking, Australia has a
lot to lose from global warming, which is predicted to affect broad areas of
agriculture, reef tourism and skiing, as well as putting coastal communities at
risk and posing a range of health hazards. The government might also ponder its
responsibility to future generations.

GLOBAL warming is not the only issue on which the Australian government seems
out of touch. The issue of nutritional information on food labels
(Antipodes, 18 November)
finally has been resolved in favour of consumers—but only after
a battle at the meeting of the state and national health ministers who govern
the Australia New Zealand Food Authority. New Zealand and most of the Australian
states favoured compulsory disclosure of sugar content and levels of saturated
fats. The Australian government not only argued against this—but, when it
lost that debate, it wanted a four-year period to phase in the new regulations.
Thankfully, the other ministers did not trust the market to provide our children
with a healthy diet.