APRIL 2003
Pockley's Razor: Nelson's Big Bust

The dominant question for researchers and academics is what approvals has Education, Science & Training Minister, Dr Brendan Nelson, wrung from Cabinet and Treasury for his “reforms” of universities. Strategic leaks to the media have led to a flurry of worry and last-minute lobbying prior to the May Budget - almost certainly being ignored.

Nelsonisation under Howard may be as dramatic as Dawkinisation under Hawke, but not as damaging. The main concern is that all flags being flown warn that only piffling extra support will be provided to compensate for a raft of controversial changes.

As with the government’s over-hyped Innovation Statement 2 years ago, Treasury will make the “package” appear replete with extra funding in the billion-dollar range, but will eke it out over several years. It will start so slowly that any difference across 38 hard-pressed universities will be invisible.

The electorate is being softened for defence and security issues to dominate the May Budget. Any extra funding for higher education and research, however small, will be trumpeted as a triumph in the face of intense competition.

The Group of Eight universities showed graphically how the Innovation Statement only stemmed the further decline in real and internationally relative terms of Australia’s commitment to R&D (Razor, March 2003). A similar fate could dog Nelsonisation.

Some idea of how Nelson will change the levels of funding for research across institutions and fields of study may emerge when he briefs science reporters after this issue of Australasian Science goes to press. It is encouraging that the Cabinet Minister responsible for science is taking the front seat on policy after leaving more administrative responsibilities to his junior Science Minister since the election.

It remains to be seen whether there will be any big changes, like making CSIRO compete with universities on a level field for research funds, or a big boost for self-directed research in the basic sciences that is not tightly constrained by “national priorities”. More likely is a further shift towards funding research as limited-life projects linked to universities having to match government money (but from where?).

Postponing decisions by putting everything under review, though, has meant that little tangible effect will be achieved by the 2004 election. Key players, like Vice-Chancellors, differ in detail but agree on two predictions for budgetary and policy changes.

Additional annual funding of a few hundred million dollars will fall well short of reversing the effects of relative cuts since 1996. Second, without a truly substantial hike in public support, Nelson’s dream of boosting at least one Australian university into the world’s top 100 is remote. Only a big hike in freely self-directed research in the basic sciences, not tightly constrained by “national priorities”, would change that.

Linking academic workplace agreements to research funding and changes to student fees will ensure ding-dong resistance by staff and students.

Nuclear Spins

Federal ministers are showing four different faces to nuclear issues - on bombs, the reactor, waste and Maralinga.

Prime Minister John Howard and Defence Minister Robert Hill have been putting the frighteners into the citizenry with warnings that North Korea could soon be able to send ballistic nukes to annihilate Australian cities. In so doing, they have not only thrown their own campaign urging Australians to be “alert, not alarmed” to Saddam Hussein and terrorists into the waste bin by comparison, but have acknowledged that the nuclear bogey is something that makes people dead scared.

Yet, since coming to office, the Coalition has been at pains to dismiss distrust among the public over anything nuclear, like the construction of a new reactor and storing radioactive waste.

Science Minister, Peter McGauran, has been busy in the news over his running disputes with South Australia over locating at Woomera a supposedly safe dump for low-level radioactive waste in a national “repository”. This friendlier term is used to describe placing waste in an underground facility that is supposedly safe.

By contrast, officials (in Senate Estimates hearings on 13 February) and Minister repeatedly assert that shallow burial of long-lived plutonium from nuclear tests at Maralinga is “world’s best practice”. They remain silent, too, on the lack of a plan for long-lived, high-level waste from the new reactor being built for ANSTO.

CSIRO Targets Security

The nation’s premier research agency, CSIRO, is in danger of being seen to bend over backwards to get a foothold in the government’s fourth national research priority, the security-related “Safeguarding Australia”.

After heading South Africa’s CSIR, which is responsible for “defence” research, CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Geoff Garrett may not appreciate the depth of Australians’ concerns that will arise over news that the CSIRO is joining in classified science, however “innocent” or “collaborative” it may be claimed.

The formation of CSIRO as an autonomous body resulted from the furious, paranoid controversy over communism after World War II as to whether all its scientists - especially the Chairman of its predecessor, CSIR, Sir David Rivett - were ranked by the UK as “safe” in keeping secrets.

As a result, CSIRO was chartered as a purely civil agency and pursued its brief with great success and public honour. It was distinctly separated from classified research - which is now under the Defence Science & Technology Organisation (DSTO) - and equally secret research on nuclear technology (with the clandestine plan of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission to build nuclear bombs).

As reported last month, the government’s refusal to release the recommendations to Cabinet of its “Expert Panel” on national research priorities has left unresolved what changes Cabinet may have made before releasing its directive. Given Howard’s escalation of military rhetoric, it seems possible - until formally denied with documentary backing - that Cabinet inserted the fourth priority with its pursuit of “homeland defence”.

Now, a question on notice by Labor’s Science Shadow Minister, Senator Kim Carr, seeks tabling of the panel’s advice.

Even before the priorities announcement, CSIRO was rethinking the seven “Flagships” (in planning for a year) and prepared to ditch some to match Cabinet’s directions. The Senate hearing confirmed that CSIRO had consulted government on a Flagship dedicated to “security”. According to Garrett (under pressure from Carr), there is “active liaison” and “a team approach” with DSTO. The Canberra Times headlined its report: “CSIRO to concentrate on weapons research”.

The sensitivity in McGauran’s and CSIRO’s offices rose in unison. Reinforcing that the Chief Executive is responsible directly to the Minister and not the Board, a statement of denial on CSIRO letterhead (03/28, 14 February) was distributed to media and throughout government from McGauran’s office, not “CSIRO Corporate” as normal.

McGauran was not cited. Reporters were directed to CSIRO Media Manager, Richard Forbes. Garrett was quoted: “The Organisation has not been given a mandate to work on weapons research. Along with other agencies CSIRO has been investigating the role of science and technology in enhancing homeland security and counter-terrorism. Such technologies range from risk analysis for pests and weeds, tamper-proof food packaging to robotics and imaging systems.”

In Senate Estimates, Garrett said much more: “Polymer SAW characterisation, superconductivity, microwave design, biosensor work, clothes for surveillance, subsurface radar pulse for plastic landmine detection. Most of our applications have a significant defence capability.”

Whether a Flagship is designated for security-related research or this is dispersed through CSIRO divisions, the inevitable checks on staff by “intelligence” agencies and outcomes that are unpublished could prove cancerous to CSIRO’s reputation for disinterested, “public good” science and advice.

The big challenge to CSIRO now will be to become exquisitely detailed in voluntarily declaring all work with a tinge of security - and not waiting to spin out selective media releases when it’s all done.

If CSIRO gets some more funding in the May Budget - and there is talk that it will, in association with the launch of its Flagships by Howard mid-April - it can’t go far to make up for the loss of several hundred staff and annual real declines in appropriation since the Coalition came to power 7 years ago.

While CSIRO scientists worry deeply over potential redundancies, they are placing hopes in the accession to senior posts of the well-regarded Drs Ron Sandland and Michael Barber as Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Science Planning, respectively.

Peter Pockley