Transparency minister Michael Ellis says opposition MPs could view specialist documents on December 8
A compromise has been proposed to allow opposition MPs to view specialist documents produced for sacked academics who were blocked from doing government-led research.
On March 21, the integrity committee of ministers, the judiciary and the attorney general blocked a request from eight highly qualified researchers seeking access to government-produced documents on internal and external research.
The highly qualified researchers, whom the ABC revealed on March 13 were dismissed for seeking to create a public body external to the government, had requested up to $1.5m worth of documents.
Following reports about the political censorship of science, the former AMA president Brian Owler said: “Politicians need to stop bullying scientists and they need to stop pretending they can just do their own thing and none of this has to be subject to scrutiny.”
Parliament passes ‘compromise’ to allow opposition MPs to view documents on sacked academics Read more
Labor has accused the Turnbull government of orchestrating its own destruction of scientific advice. The former Australia Institute chief, John Quiggin, has highlighted the Australian National Audit Office report that showed 12 out of 50 of the 100 top performing civil servants were dismissed or left the public service to start companies in the past 15 years.
The National Audit Office report, which came to light as the Coalition tried to impose a special ministerial committee on the chief scientist, says employment in the public service is competitive and that public servants have a “number of avenues for improving their career prospects”.
The integrity committee, which is largely composed of Liberal and National party MPs, overturned a recommendation by cabinet secretary Arthur Sinodinos that the senior academic researchers be given access to documents that relied on the government’s own research.
On Friday, the Guardian revealed Sinodinos later wrote to the ethics committee questioning the importance of the public’s access to professional scientific information.
“I agree that scientific data alone cannot secure funding or access to policy makers,” he wrote. “However, with respect, there is a difference between academic medical research, clinical sciences, industrial science and plant science.”
The rules of conduct governing government-funded researchers prohibit any inappropriate communication with the department regarding research funded under grant conditions.
The integrity committee chair, the energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, told the committee the only data in the proposed documents was “supposed to be approved by departmental managers and officials”.
In a statement, Transparency minister Michael Ellis said he had asked the secretary of the education department, Mark Scott, to offer a compromise that could allow the opposition to have access to documents on the University of Sydney academics.
Scott offered government officials a group briefing of technical and scientific data by 10 June.
“It would also contain historical information on research outcomes with links to contracts and funding,” Ellis said.
“These documents are to be released under the requests of an opposition party, in accordance with the Integrity Committee decisions. These documents will be shared with the principles, parliamentary select committee of select MPs and the secretary of the Department of Education, as well as with all parliamentarians.”
But Frydenberg said the “sub-committee went back on its word and excluded all research material that will be publicly available as it would not be admissible in a court of law”.
“The integrity committee was attempting to justify excluding key independent information about government programs from all parliamentarians because they fear losing political credibility.”
Frydenberg said Labor’s support for the amendments represented a “total capitulation to their ideological opposition to government-funded science”.
“I know that this is not an easy change for Labor but it represents an alternative if they don’t want to support Labor’s plan for the independence of science in this country,” he said.
The government has until the end of May to respond to the auditor general’s report about information and process governance in the public service.