Might a Grownup Have Been Chosen to Cleanup the Mess?     Dr Brendan Nelson (l)                                                                         Ms Julie Bishop (r)

You never know, sometimes miracles seem to occur. After all Dwight Eisenhower as President of the United States, appointed the conservative Republican Governor of California Earl Warren to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court where he served with great distinction  much to the annoyance of the President because the Warren Court took on the defence of individual rights more than any of its predecessors. Warren considered this the court's proper role and in no way should it be subservient to the other two branches of government.

A real thorn is the side of the Executive? Well, that depended on just what it was the Executive Branch wanted to try on.

On the other hand the remarkable system of micromanagement over which the Prime Minister, John Howard, presides and which permeates the functioning of Cabinet and the Ministry as a whole, militates against significant changes of direction. So it's not surprising that the expectation is that the replacement of Brendan Nelson by Julia Bishop as Minister for Education, Science and Training will usher in something of a stylistic rather than substantive change.

It would appear that the good doctor may consider it safer to visit our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan than moving through enemy student lines when scheduled to give an address and the University of Sydney.

However, there is also a sniff that Brendan the Brave has not lost his zeal for instituting reviews, to say nothing about already having an eye on the Treasurer's job. "I think the priorities will be to see that the economic management and administration of the department is as solid as it can possibly be, that we also make sure that everything we do is about lifting and keeping the morale of our defence service personnel."

In contrast, so far Ms Bishop remains publicly circumspect and so such matters as who will be the next Chief Scientist, under what conditions and when will he or she be appointed remains a mystery despite it being some nine months since Robin Batterham chucked it in. Clearly, John Howard and his Cabinet haven't considered it a matter of urgency. That being the case why should any individual of consequence be interested in it?

Another piece of unfinished business concerns the Research Quality Framework (RQF) which continues to drag on. As one reader of TFW points out, "No one can argue against the general policy intent of ensuring Australia's research effort is oriented toward high quality, high impact R&D," it's just that the devil  is in the detail.

In the meantime the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council remain under siege through ministerial threats of increasing interference under the guise of the ultimate implementation of an RQF. The efficacy of such an approach, despite extended use with repeated modifications in the United Kingdom has yet to be demonstrated while the US granting agencies go on their merry way using peer review and in the case grants to principal investigators including funds for university overheads which in the US are up to 50% of the money allotted to the investigtor.

Considering the ever increasing meddling of the federal cabinet in telling the universities how to do their job, it is hardly surprising that there is the odour of the cabinet fashioning an RQF to gain additional leverage in bending the universities to its will, and all the while reducing the percentage of GDP it expends on the sector.

Of course there is the possibility that the new Minister may take a moment to consider just how have the "reforms" that Dr Nelson has instituted improved Australia's universities in their missions of learning and research in the sciences and humanities, or is that now an outdated view of their role.

Alex Reisner

The Funneled Web