Harry Robinson trains a revealing light on the Queen's Birthday Honours.
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Gonging On

A Mr Carlyle Turner got one for making toys for charity. Edgar Britt, former jockey, got one. John Hinde got one because he used to talk about movies on the ABC and is still living in his 90s. Herb Elliot used to be a champion runner and now organises sports affairs -- he got one. Lots of others got one including some from the visual arts, rugby league and the writing game.

All very worthy people and welcome to a mention in the Queen's Birthday Honours List.

Even more worthy were the winners of the top ranking gongs -- Companions of the Order of Australia. Here big business and the law with names such as Hugh Morgan, Robert Champion de Crespigny, Stan Wallis, Martin Albrecht, judges Kenneth Hayne and John Doyle and Mrs Jeanne Pratt, charity working wife of a packaging magnate -- they got one each.

Deeply worthy people, highly deserving people.

Not everyone was satisfied, though. Sydney Morning Herald writer Tony Stephens regretted the lack of women, noting that, of the 576 gonged citizens, only 178 or 31% were women. Stephens did not mention that no scientist appeared in the first eight, nor that scientists as a class weren't recognised as being of much value.

Could it be that not one of the men and women working in institutions such as The John Curtin School of Medical Research; The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute; The School of Marine Biology at James Cook University, Townsville; commercial R&D laboratories; research outfits in our universities; the CSIRO; -- that not one had done anything of merit throughout the previous year? The question answers itself.

Let's get this in perspective: Queen's Birthday Honours are puffs in the public relations scheme of things. The publicity helps sell a paper or two on the day, some of the gonged like to put OA or AO on their letterheads or pin the badge on their lapels; the families are pleased, and the whole thing melts into the social texture.

So does it matter that science as a calling rates so low? Yes, because science and scientists need to appear on such lists, not for themselves but so people at large are reminded that scientific work is always going on and some of the results will profoundly affect the national future. Because it is people at large who are asked to pay taxes to fund scientific work. Because the first step in winning taxpayer dollars is public awareness of science and the benefits it can bring.

The smooth people who run the messy/mushy area of politics/public relations/social engineering, look backwards for winners but science is a forward looking enterprise. Politicians and spin-doctors don't like forward-looking people. You never know what they might say or do. There are few votes in the future. Much better to stick with well-known names from the past. The past has been cleansed and approaches myth. You can depend on the past. God alone knows what those pointy heads are doing.

People devoted to intellectual life react with distaste at the notion of hustling and shoving and pushing for baubles such as honours lists. It's a grubby job but someone will have to do it if science is to rise in public awareness. If Sc people don't want to work in the dust of social engineering, then they will need to pay an outsider to do it, maybe to create an Order of Australian Science... or set up a Science Hall of Fame... anything vulgar and loud to impress people at large.

As to science and politics, it pays no dividends to blame the Howard government for its blindness vis a vis science. When he first became prime minister, Mr Howard was said to hanker for the year 1959. There's no indication yet that he's moved into 1960 but he is not alone. If Simon Crean were now the prime minister, his list for Queen's Birthday Honours would have varied little from Mr Howard's. A few more trade union secretaries, perhaps, a few more party hacks but his view would share much with the Howard rear vision mirror. Political parties are lodged in yesterday. It is necessary that the scientists of today and tomorrow engage their own drummer and march to their own beat.

Editor's Note:  in the recent Birthday Honours were 2 mathematicians, Noel Barton and George Szekeres (1, 2).

Harry Robinson who for 25 years worked in television journalism in Oz and the US and who was for several years air media critic for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Sun-Herald.