Opinion - 20 May 2001

The American novelist, historian and gifted gadfly Bernard DeVoto published The Year of Decision: 1846,  in 1943. It deals with the year in which US' westward expansion reached its climax with the seizing of the Southwest and California -- with the completion of the United States as a nation. The agony of the American Civil War was yet to be reaped, but the seeds had be sown and had begun to germinate long before.

Though less obviously dramatic, 2002 may in hindsight be seen as Australia's Year of Decision. There has set in on the nation a creeping decay - genteel if you're upper or middle class, rather less so if you're not. As yet there is little sign of serious attempts to reverse it. So, for example, the Government's Innovation Action Plan at best merely arrests the decline in support for research, development and higher eduction while our OECD cohort continue to increase support thereby causing us to fall even further behind than we are now.

Friday's Sydney Morning Herald reported, "Trade Minister Mark Vaile said the report showed the government's policies towards IT were on track."  

What Report?  "Australia's strong growth and productivity improvement was due to flexible policies and willingness to use technology rather than production of IT hardware, an OECD report has found.
    "It found Australia was only behind Finland of OECD countries in terms of productivity growth in the decade between 1989 and 1999."

Then comes the kicker, that bit the Minister for Trade chose to ignore. "But the report also credits Australia's good economic performance on macroeconomic changes put in place by the Hawke-Keating government of the 1980s." 

What was sown yesterday is reaped today.
What is sown today will be reaped tomorrow.

The Howard Government has just on half-a-year to run. On current projections it will be hard pressed to gain a third term. But in any case whether we find ourselves with John Howard or Kim Beazley as Federal leader at the beginning of 2002, make no mistake, true support for learning will be hard won.

This brings into focus the six page article by David Malakoff "Perfecting the Art of the Science Deal" in the May 4^th issue of Science [available on-line if you are a subscriber]. The subject? How the US' science community is learning the art of lobbying its Congress. He quotes Jack Gibbons, Bill Clinton's first science advisor, "The [scientific] community is catching on to how this town works." And there are several fundamental precepts in perfecting the art:

• work in concert a unified front is essential,
  

• develop and maintain strong connections with influential advocates,
  

• don't wait for the crisis before informing and educating the public and parliamentarians - make effective use of emails, newsletters, popular articles and programs in the media,
  

• don't cave in, you have to use all available avenues so, "If Mom says no, try Dad."

Just a few of the specific examples given in the Science article:

• "My boss doesn't return every phone call the same day, but he does return calls from presidents of universities in his state." Bill Bonvillian, a senior aide to Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT). How often do Vice-Chancellors, especially from the Group of Eight, hit the phones to talk to appropriate parliamentarians - and not just when it's a crisis but to keep in touch and to inform?
  

• "In the last 5 years, we've gotten past a lot of parochialism; researchers are speaking for science first and then [their discipline]." David Shutt of the 163,000-member American Chemical Society.
  

• While no aspect of Australian science does particularly well relative to the OECD average, biomedicine does significantly better than the rest and it is the same in the US. "There's the human factor of course. 
      'Nobody dies of high-energy physics,' notes one Washington lobbyist.
      'I don't think you are going to see Tom Cruise testifying for nanoscience,' quips another."

And yet that makes the point. It is essential to get Australia's icons to come on side and to publicly drive home the message that without a massive injection of resources into mathematics, science and engineering in particular and higher education in general the "white anting" of our nation will continue. 

It's all very well for the Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, to use the OECD report for support of the government's policies towards information technology by saying,  "A key conclusion of the report is that it is the use, and not the production, of [information and communications technology] that is important in GDP growth," and,  "Thanks to our flexible economy, this is an Australian strength." 

But were the time to come that first world countries have diminishing interest in what we have to sell, we shall have a very serious problem. That point was made months ago by the President of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) Prof. Sue Serjeantson when she indicated that just buying smart wasn't good enough. Apparently the  Minister for Trade disagrees.

2002 may in hindsight be seen as Australia's Year of Decision. There has set in on the nation a creeping decay - genteel if you're upper or middle class, rather less so if you're not. It is essential that a concerted, sustained and vigorous campaign be financed and undertaken by the scientific community and those responsible for the education of our population, all our population, to repair that decay  - not tomorrow but now.

Alex Reisner
The Funneled Web