sydney

Stocker: ASTEC gives way to PMSEIC.

Australia's chief scientist, John Stocker, has persuaded the Coalition government to revamp its scientific advisory mechanisms, has won greater influence for scientists over policy — and has managed to have his own job upgraded.

The changes follow recommendations by Stocker in a review carried out for the former science minister, Peter McGauran (see Nature 385, 473; 1997 & Nature 388, 8; 1997). The only proposal not accepted was one giving more influence to McGauran because he was not a member of cabinet. McGauran has since had to resign, and his portfolio was taken over by John Moore, already a cabinet minister.

The renamed Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council (PMSEIC) was originally formed under a Labor government in 1989. Stocker runs PMSEIC, which will become more powerful at the expense of the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC). Stocker is responsible to both the Prime Minister, John Howard, and to Moore.

ASTEC, set up by a Coalition government 20 years ago, will be wound up later this year. On becoming chief scientist in late 1996, Stocker was made chairman of ASTEC, but concluded that it was not worth continuing. He describes its two-year ‘Foresight’ study, intended to define national priorities, as “wasted effort producing broad generalizations that couldn't be applied”. The study was quietly buried.

Announcing the changes, Howard wrote that the emphasis of the new council “reinforces the increasingly important role the government sees science and technology playing in Australia's future”. He said that the 20 members of PMSEIC (seven ministers involved in science and technology, seven representatives of academies and universities and six individuals) will be augmented by “other key representatives of the business and scientific community”.

Stocker wants to include the chairs of the two major research granting bodies, the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council. He acknowledges that, in recent years, meetings of the prime minister's council have been little more than “ad hoc briefings”, from which no discernible changes to policy ensued.

In the new structure, the non-ministerial members will make up three working parties, taking over the role of ASTEC and charged with producing recommendations for policies and action. Stocker will chair the most important working group, on national priorities. “We aim to become a mainstream channel into policy⃛ ASTEC could not plug into the prime minister,” he says.

Topics that are politically sensitive following the government's cuts and increased charges in its first two budgets will not be avoided. The main working party's agenda includes the supply of a technologically trained workforce — science enrolments at universities have dropped markedly — and the support of basic research in universities, where infrastructure is under strain.

The full council will meet twice yearly. Stocker acknowledges pressure to deliver concrete proposals to its next meeting in mid-year, as that could be the last before a federal election.