It does not make sense to muzzle government scientists. However, Lawrie McFarlane makes an almost perfect analogy by comparing the current situation to one of a private employer who doesn’t want to be contradicted by employees.
Unfortunately, this is not how publicly funded science is supposed to work. Public funding allows research that doesn’t have immediate financial reward to be done, and lets us study issues so that informed policy decisions can be made.
When you shut down direct public access to the scientists, you reduce transparency. The public has no way to tell whether the government is actually basing decisions on research results.
When the government acts as an intermediary, we can end up with a situation where information is selectively suppressed when it doesn’t suit the political agenda of the party in power.
This situation is not one of scientific research any longer, but of “decision-based evidence-making” — selecting for release only those things that support an agenda. And that’s fine when you’ve got a private company trying to control information from getting to competitors, control the branding of the company and earn maximum return for itself — but it’s not how an elected democratic government does things.
Walter Ash
Victoria
