Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Banks for his question. We do accept that there is an important role that scientists play in informing the Australian community and policymakers about the right kinds of decisions that need to be made in this parliament to deal with dangerous climate change. We recognise that we have a great scientific tradition in this country. We have had great scientists like Professor McFarlane Burnet or Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize. They themselves are evidence for us of the contribution that scientists can make. We also know that in our electorates, for example at the University of New South Wales in my electorate of Kingsford Smith, there are scientists who provide us with researched and considered policy advice about what we ought to be doing as a country to deal with the very great challenges we face.

Today in parliament I was very pleased to give the blazers to 23 of our youngest best and brightest—the young Australian Maths and Science Olympiad team. They are going to compete against the best and brightest around the world. They will be the scientists of the future who will help us to deal with the challenges of the future.

It was with some alarm that I read the reports in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald of remarks by Dr Peter Phelps, a whip in the Liberal government of New South Wales, about scientists. I say this because I think that we are at a junction point where, if the parliament does not express its confidence in the work that scientists do and the role that they play, in the public arena that confidence can be reduced. Dr Phelps got to his feet and said:

I comment in this place on the latest adventures in the great global warming swindle that is gripping our nation and most of the formerly civilised world.

He went on to say:

At the heart of many scientists … lies the heart of a totalitarian planner. One can see them now, beavering away, alone, unknown in their laboratories.

Regrettably, he then went on to associate the work that these scientists do with the rise of Nazism. This is the most serious and rancid charge that can be brought by anyone in a house of parliament in this country. I do note that the government whip we are referring to has associations with members in this House. This is someone who has worked as an adviser for the member for Mackellar, worked as an adviser for Senator Ronaldson and was the chief of staff, as it were, for the former member for Eden-Monaro.

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