Ian Lowe Photo: Patricia Kelly, Griffith University

The journal's readership is estimated at 1 million and along with Nature has one of the highest impact ratings of science journals. Professor Lowe does not have kind things to say about the support for science during the rein of  the Coalition government -- with one exception -- "The conservative government of John Howard has been in power for 11 years--bad years for basic science. Although medical research has done well..."

Professor Lowe's principal points:

• [O]verall public funding of science has declined from 0.77 to 0.59% of gross domestic product, placing Australia among the bottom countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in science investment.

• Whereas previous governments had encouraged private-sector R&D with a 150% tax concession, the first Howard budget cut that program, doubling the cost of research for profitable private companies. Commercial research spending fell dramatically and has only just returned to the 1996 level.

• In the early funding rounds [for the Cooperative Research Centres], there was a healthy balance between commercial ventures and those aimed at the public interest such as renewable energy, integrated pest management, tropical rainforests, and the coastal zone.

• Under the Howard government, every one of those public interest centers was eliminated, leaving the program totally oriented toward commercial outcomes.

• Previous governments had specific projects to fund R&D in energy. The Howard government dismantled that effort... the absence of a concerted program of R&D on energy alternatives has left Australia... unprepared for the carbon-constrained world of the future.

• Last year, the science minister intervened after the normal peer-review process and invited a group of unqualified ideologues to vet the recommendations of the Australian Research Council. Four grants were vetoed by the group.

• The main government science organization, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), [has] instructed scientists not to comment on issues with policy implications.

The Howard years have been gloomy for public interest research.

We now await Ms Julie's considered refutation.