Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] Today is the most relevant day in the seven years that I've been in the Senate, with the introduction of a motion for an inquiry into the need for independent science advice to the parliament. Of course, it's the day after the IPCC sixth assessment report landed, a report which the UN Secretary-General described as a 'code red for humanity'. He said:

The alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.

It's a week of unprecedented fires in Greece, a Northern Hemisphere summer of 47 degrees being recorded in Canada, unprecedented wildfires across the US and Russia, and unprecedented floods in Germany and China—and, of course, after our Black Summer bushfires of the summer of 2019-20, which killed over three billion animals. Yet our government is in denial, and the Labor Party are in denial when it comes to the need for urgent action by 2030 to slash our carbon pollution by at least half for Australia to be playing its part in tackling the climate crisis.

How would a parliamentary office of science have changed this? In the words of the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, which could be one possible model for an Australian parliamentary office of science, the debate here today and going forward would have been informed by trusted and impartial analysis. We need more than just the scientific advice that is currently given to government. We need quality, reliable, impartial scientific advice to every parliamentarian to inform our decision-making and for that advice to be largely public advice. Parliamentarians could then ignore it. They could challenge it. They could debate it, if they wished. But it would be at their peril. The work of scientists needs to be front and centre in the decisions that we make in our parliament, and the work of Australian scientists, in particular, needs to be celebrated and made accessible to all Australian MPs, including to those from whom we heard this afternoon: Senator McMahon, who was saying that our climate depends on sun spots; Senators Rennick and Roberts, who deny the climate science altogether; and, in fact, the Labor senators, who are silent on the scientifically assessed need to be slashing our carbon pollution by at least half by 2030.

I want to, in the context of this debate of privileging and highlighting science, particularly salute the over 40 Australian scientists who are lead authors of the IPCC report that was released yesterday. Thank you for your perseverance, for sitting in the fire, for spending each day confronting the reality of the existential threats to our planet. I am listening; the Greens are listening. We will keep working to convert your science into legislation, for Australia to act in the urgent way that is needed to confront our climate crisis, to act as if our house is on fire, because it is. Of course, this proposed referral for an inquiry into a parliamentary office of science isn't only about climate scientists, as relevant as they are today. It's about those scientists working on COVID, on vaccines, on environmental protection—across the gamut of science. A parliamentary office of science would mean their advice would be regularly, reliably and impartially conveyed to all parliamentarians in this place.

Now, I want to go specifically to the issue of this referral today, which, of course, is to set up an inquiry about scientific advice to this parliament and, in particular, the appropriateness of a parliamentary office of science. Our referral today is based on the basic principles that guide the Australian Greens when it comes to policy in general and science policy particularly. We believe that research is essential for social progress and it's a public good. And we believe that scientific principles and the practice of independent, peer reviewed research is essential to the development and availability of high-quality knowledge and must not be compromised. And, most importantly, we believe it's essential that policymaking is informed by high-quality evidence and scientific research.

It's because we value the contribution of scientific research and expertise that I particularly want to acknowledge the contribution of the Rapid Research Information Forum, or RRIF. Since early last year, of course, we've been responding to a worldwide pandemic in ways that have been often very complex and very challenging. There have been major policy responses, but often they've depended on understanding and answering new and complex questions about a virus that, as we know, is still mutating and evolving. So we have seen an incredibly valuable contribution from the RRIF with multiple papers published on a whole range of questions, and we welcome the contribution of the Australian Academy of Science in leading that important work as well as a whole range of individuals and organisations across the sector in contributing collaboratively.

Given the important contribution of the RRIF, it's sad to see so many areas of policy where ministers have actually ignored the scientific advice in making their decisions. It's hard to know where to start, and it highlights the need for the advice from the RRIF to be elevated and underpinned by something like a parliamentary office of science. The areas where Liberal ministers have been ignoring the scientific advice include: ignoring the scientific advice on forest ecology, which means that native forest logging is continuing across the country; ignoring the advice on faunal extinction and conservation, weakening rather than strengthening our environmental laws; and, critically, as I've already discussed, ignoring the evidence on climate.

As well as government policy, there have been MPs freelancing on their own, often undermining, at critical points, some of the evidence that we've received here in the building. One member of the government's party in the other place was permanently banned from Facebook for spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Imagine how bad your content needs to be to be banned from Facebook, a platform that's regularly used by conspiracy theorists and far-Right extremists to spread their ideas! It's very clear that we need a much greater use and prominence of science in our decision-making here, and we need parliamentarians to be held to account when they are spruiking far-out ideas that are completely debunked by good science.

If you think about the problems that we've got with science not informing our decisions here in Australia, it's important to think about how this could be different. One positive example is the UK's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, or POST. The UK POST produces impartial, non-partisan and peer-reviewed briefings designed to make scientific research available to the UK parliament. In an Australian context, that could be incredibly valuable. Think of the contribution a POST could make to debating COVID relief bills, changes to environment laws, changes to health frameworks and farming frameworks or, of course, climate and energy policy. For example, on climate targets, their recent advice to the UK parliament included the following:

Achieving net zero by 2050 will be highly challenging and, although existing policy does not put the UK on track to meet interim milestones, there is emerging consensus across the private sector and civil society on the importance of climate mitigation. There is also a growing number of industry organisations outside of the immediate energy and climate space that are now aligning their operations with net zero by 2050. However, several groups argue that the 2050 date would need to be brought forward to make the UK's targets compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C under a stricter interpretation of 'equity' assumptions. Globally, current Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) emissions reduction pledges emitted by all nations under the Paris Agreement fail to reach even the lower end of the Agreement's ambition. Recent CCC modelling has demonstrated a route to UK net zero by the early 2040s for the first time, under a scenario in which both innovation and public appetite for behaviour change all develop faster than expected.

Basically, the POST is able to summarise contentious science and present it to parliamentarians in a way which is trusted and impartial and which parliamentarians cannot avoid, ignore or turn a blind eye to. It would be there to be considered as part of our decision-making processes. That would mean we would not be in a situation where the Labor Party are silent on 2030 targets. We would not be in a situation where we have government backbenchers spruiking completely fanciful models. They could still do that that, but it would be very clear that it was completely inconsistent with the appropriate science that was being presented to the parliament in an impartial and reliable way.

Of course, the motion before us today is not to establish a parliamentary office of science. It's simply putting the question to the Senate to consider: what is the current state of scientific advice to the Australian parliament, and can it be improved?

This is a really important question and one we think is worth examining. We would welcome the opportunity to hear from policymakers, scientific researchers, academic experts and the general community. I've talked to a lot of key science stakeholders over the last few months as we've been developing this proposal for a parliamentary office of science and developing this idea of having an inquiry. They have been very positive about it, because they know; they want to see science given a much higher status and much greater salience in the decision-making of the Australian parliament.

The purpose, of course, of a Senate inquiry is to hear from the whole community and to gather the information. So I really commend this motion to the Senate. I think it's an incredibly important motion, particularly on a day like today, when we see the extent to which science is influencing our future—given the climate crisis we're facing that's front of mind for us all today—and we know that we need to be elevating the importance of science in our decision-making. I really hope this motion to establish an inquiry to look at scientific advice to the parliament will be supported across party lines in the Senate this afternoon. Thank you.