Take the Good With the Indifferent. (March 22, 2006)

    So far the Minister for Education, Science and Training and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues, Julie Bishop, has not quite finished the second month of juggling her portfolios.

Back on February 15 in addressing the House with regard to repealing ministerial responsibility for approval of the use of the abortion inducing drug RU486 Ms Bishop gave an unemotional critique in favour of repeal which illustrated her legal background and critically, objective reasoning. Ms Bishop made several key points which are pertinent when evaluating her current remarks concerning the functioning of the Australian Research Council on the one hand and her view that the Federal Government be ceded full control over Australian universities.

The debate [with regard to the approval of RU486 ] has... moved to an area of particular concern to me, that of scrutiny and accountability. There has been comparison of the scrutiny or perceived scrutiny of a decision made by an elected member of parliament and Minister contrasted to decisions made by the TGA or, as some have suggested, ‘faceless bureaucrats’ within the Department of Health and Ageing.

 

At present, there is minimal public or parliamentary scrutiny of a decision of a health minister to approve or otherwise the evaluation, listing or registration of RU486 as an abortifacient. Some will say in response, ‘Oh well, the minister is answerable to the public.’ Well, yes, he or she will face a general election every three years, but that is not the level of scrutiny that this issue demands.

 

The only scrutiny, if you can call it that, is contained under section 23AA of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, whereby the minister is required to notify the parliament of a decision to approve an application for the evaluation, registration or listing of RU486 by the TGA within five sitting days of that approval.

 

By contrast, the Therapeutic Goods Administration is subject to considerable public and parliamentary scrutiny in the exercise of its functions and is accountable for them.

 

The task of assessing prescription drugs is in fact carried out by the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee, which... has the role of providing independent, scientific advice to the federal government on new drugs. This body consists of six or seven core members of experts and up to 20 associate members. Of the core members, at least three must be eminent medical practitioners with at least two specialists in clinical medicine and one must be a pharmacologist or hold a degree in science, specialising in pharmaceutical science. The associate members must include at least one pharmaceutical chemist with recent manufacturing experience in therapeutic goods, at least one toxicologist and a medical practitioner in general practice. All of them are appointed by the Minister for Health and Ageing. They are health experts who are working in medical and clinical settings every day.

Returning to the present Ms Bishop told The Australian's Dorothy Illing that she strongly supports the Australian Research Council and the system of peer review it uses to distribute the $540 million in research funds each year.

She also indicated that she will not pursue the controversial practice of her predecessor, Brendan Nelson, who vetoed some ten research grants over the past two years.

Ms Bishop said, "My view is that if the peer review process has the independence and integrity to ensure that it is robust, I would see no need for me to second-guess that process."

According to Ms Illing, "Ms Bishop scotched rumours that she planned to establish a community standards committee to oversee the grants. Neither did she have plans to appoint any more lay people to the quality and scrutiny committee. 'I want to be able to have faith in the independence and the integrity of the peer review process,' she said. 'So if that process works as one would hope, it would not be necessary to have people second-guessing it.' Ms Bishop said she held the ARC and the research it funded in 'very high regard'."

Those views appear entirely consistent with Ms Bishop's assessment of how evaluation of the use of RU486 should be handled.

But the minister was also interviewed by The Age where Jewel Topsfield and David Rood report that the Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop has backed a Commonwealth takeover of universities from the states, "I think that [divided responsibility] makes for a dysfunctional system, because the Commonwealth has the fiscal power and the states have the legislative power. There are a whole raft of areas I believe lead to duplication, excessive regulation and greater bureaucracy. If [universities] want a reduction in red tape, they should get behind a single legislative direction or put up with the mishmash of constitutional and legislative powers that currently exist."

The anxiety engendered by Ms Bishop is that she has made no mention as to the mechanism(s) that the Commonwealth would employ in administering its monopoly.

Would regulation be placed in the hands of the Minister for Education, Science and Training much as the Minister for Health and Ageing held purview over RU486?

Universities might be fortunate and the minister would be a benevolent despot, but equally he or she might be in the worst case an ignorant, autocratic, irrational ideologue.

If Ms Bishop is serious in wishing to put forward a plan for full federal control of the universities, she must set out a comprehensive plan of checks and balances such as would be the case if an independent competent Board of Higher Education with robust powers would operate at arms length of any current government.

Considering the micro-managerial preoccupation and ideology of Prime Minister John Howard, it seems unlikely that such an approach would be countenanced by the current government.