Professor Sackett speaks to Peter Mares on ABC Radio National Interest.

• 03 April 2009

MARES: Late last year Federal Science Minister Kim Carr made two important appointments.  He selected a new chief executive to run the CSIRO, Dr Megan Clark and a new chief scientist, Professor Penny Sackett.  We’ll hear from the Chief Scientist first.  Born in the United States, Professor Sackett is a physicist by training and an astronomer by profession.  She arrived in Australia to become director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University in 2002, only to see the Mount Stromlo Observatory destroyed in the Canberra bushfires a few months later.  Professor Sackett then oversaw the rebuilding of the observatory and since November last year she’s been chief scientist for Australia.  Professor Penny Sackett, welcome to the National Interest.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Thank you, Peter, good afternoon.

MARES: What does a chief scientist do?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: The primary task of a chief scientist is to advise the government in an independent manner on all things scientific and innovative, which is a fairly large brief.  This is done both in a proactive way that is putting forward things to government the Chief Scientist feels is important for the country, as well as responding to specific requests from the government.

MARES: On your website there’s a stress on the fact that this is independent advice to government.  But what if your advice contradicts government policy?  What if it brings you into conflict with government?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well, that’s something that we spoke about before I took up the post both with the minister and – that is Minister Carr – and the Prime Minister and that’s recognised on all sides.  I think the best way to describe how we conduct our business is that the government respects that the advice must be independent and the Chief Scientist respects that the government shouldn’t be surprised by any advice.  That’s to say we consult carefully before giving it.

MARES: I guess you also have to accept the government might choose to ignore you?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: I certainly do.  I’m not here to set policy that’s not my role at all it’s only to advise.

MARES: The name ‘chief scientist’ can be a bit misleading.  I guess it can make it sound like you are the chief of all scientists, the final arbiter, the person who will pronounce on matters of controversy.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: No, no, no not at all.  In fact, I like to think of it as the Chief Scientist for Australia, rather than the Chief Scientist of Australia.  There’s no suggestion at all that I’m the chief of all scientists in Australia, but rather than I am the scientist that is responsible in thinking in the national best interest.

MARES: We love it when people say ‘national interest’ on the National Interest so thank you for doing that.  I mean, it must be a risk you’re aware of, though, with media for example; people like me coming to you and asking you to pronounce on a particular topic?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well, again certainly I see my role as providing scientific advice, the best scientific advice of the day.  But it’s not my role to comment on policy or even necessarily how that might be best achieved.

MARES: You’re a physicist and an astronomer.  What do you do when you’re asked to give advice on things outside your field?  I mean, something like genetic engineering, for example?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Yes, it’s very important to understand that when the Chief Scientist is asked for advice it’s not expected that he or she will respond with her own scientific opinion, certainly not her own personal opinion.  Rather, what we do is we have a series of working groups that we set up to advise on particular issues.  So this draws upon the expertise all across Australia and when a special issue comes up that we may not have been prepared to provide advice on then again, we set up a special ad hoc committee to advise us on that matter.  And then the Chief Scientist summarises that advice and passes it on to government.

MARES: When you took up the position of chief scientist in November you outlined some key challengers facing Australia.  Climate change, you mentioned, water and science education.  You’ve been in the job a few months now are those still the key challenges do you think?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Yes I do I certainly think those are all very strong challenges for Australia.

MARES: Let’s look at climate change because last month you gave a speech at the annual Science meets Parliament dinner in Canberra.  A lot of MPs there, including some prominent climate change sceptics and you delivered a very strong message.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: I did.  I had, of course, been doing quite a bit of studying on climate change in any event, but I’d just come back from a meeting in Copenhagen with over 2000 of the world’s top climate change scientists to listen to the new science, the most recent science that’s come out and the message is very, very clear.  It is that we must act to reduce emissions and at the same time prepare for some climate change that is already in progress.  So I admit I did deliver that message as clearly as I could.

But, at the same time, it’s also true that there are many things that we can do in the face of those challenges and I believe that doing so will actually not only help prepare ourselves for the climate change that is already underway, but indeed, as the world transitions to a low carbon economy if we take action sooner, we’ll be best prepared for that economy, and therefore can flourish best in it.

MARES: I mean, you said in that speech that, “We must set very ambitious goals for greenhouse gas reductions.”  That’s not what we’re doing though is it, that’s not what the government’s doing.  So we immediately see here a conflict between your views and government policy.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: I think that the government is aware that very ambitious goals must be set and I think that we can rest assured that those discussions are taking place between the Australian Government and other leaders worldwide.  It is important, I would stress again, to do that quickly if we would like to keep the overall level of global warming at 2 degrees average and, of course, the extremes will swing much higher than that.  Then we must stop increasing global emissions and, indeed, begin to decrease them year by year by about 2015.  So that means we have about six years to go from a situation where now where every year we increase the amount of carbon we put into the atmosphere to decreasing the amount of carbon we put into the air.

MARES: And, as you said in your speech quite pointedly I thought, “Six years is just two terms of a government MP or about how long it takes to get a PhD through the university.”

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Yes, so just to put it in perspective we need to begin now.

MARES: I’m going to quote a little bit more from your speech.  This is the National Interest on ABC Radio National.  I’m talking to the Chief Scientist for Australia, Professor Penny Sackett who gave a speech in Canberra last month, the Science meets Parliament event, talking about climate change and Professor Sackett you said this.  You said, “The climate change is the single largest challenge of our generation presenting us with the opportunity and the necessity to transform the world in a way as profound as that witnessed at the dawn of the industrial age.”  And you said too that “Ours is the first generation to know with certainty that our activities are altering the planet in a manner that may deny the next generation the prosperity we enjoy, and endanger the lives of millions.”

So, I take it you agree with the Prime Minister that this is not just a huge scientific challenge, but it’s a huge moral challenge?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: It is a moral challenge.  It is a challenge that perhaps is larger than humanity has faced, certainly as a group.  That is, all of humanity is facing this challenge, so I think that is a sobering thought, but it’s not one that makes me despondent because I know that we have dedicated people that are working on this issue.  I know there is a will in the Australian society and, indeed, worldwide to begin to tackle this and I know that we have the societal and scientific tools at our hand to begin to work on that challenge.

MARES: It sounds like you have more faith that our politicians will meet the challenge than many of us do.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Well I think I have no doubt that politicians spend a lot of time worrying about how best to respond to climate change and we have seen examples of the world’s politicians being pulled together, for example, by the current economic crisis and thinking about how to work together.  And I’d like to think that that spirit will be carried over into continuing to work on the challenges that climate change presents.

MARES: Professor Sackett, you’ve been recognised as a national role model by the Office of the Status of Women, chosen as one of seven women to highlight science as a career to secondary school students.  Is that sort of role modelling important for girls?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: I think it is and I’m pleased that Australia has many examples to offer.  I think it’s also important for boys, you know.  I think that it’s important for both young girls and young boys to see that science is a very normal activity for humans to be engaged in and therefore it’s not surprising that both men and women take up the profession.

MARES: But it doesn’t seem to be flourishing these days at an educational level, I mean, in terms of student interest and numbers and things?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: Yes well that is a concern to me.  In fact, I would say that over let’s say about the past 30 years we’ve seen the number of young people taking up sciences like physics, chemistry, biology decline by about a half as percentages.  And that is quite a concern, especially given that the world we live in is becoming increasingly technological and we rely on that technology and that basic understanding of how the world works, whether it be at the applied end or the very most fundamental end.  We rely on that knowledge to meet challenges and so it is a concern to me and I –

MARES: Well it’s also a vicious circle isn’t it because if you get a decline in science graduates you also get a decline in science teachers and maths’ teachers, indeed, and then the cycle is in danger of repeating itself?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: That is an issue and I would like to do as much as I can.  Can I just say that I’ve talked to the Chief Scientists of Australia that is of each state, and we agree that this is a primary concern.  We had a recent meeting and it was the top issue on our agenda; both the issue of science teaching and science education and the number of young people taking it up.

Now I understand from talking to many of my colleagues at the top level of universities across Australia that there’s a very slight indication that at the tertiary level that might be turning around this year and I certainly hope that’s the case.  In the meantime we need to support science and mathematics’ teachers as much as we can and value them throughout society.

MARES: This is the National Interest on ABC Radio National.  My guest is the Chief Scientist for Australia, Professor Penny Sackett.  Now Professor Sackett, this week you launched the new Zadko telescope in Western Australia, the biggest telescope in that state and Radio National listeners should keep an ear out for the Science Show in coming weeks to hear more about that from you.  I’m not going to talk about the Zadko telescope now, but I know you’re a keen supporter of West Australia also becoming home to the giant Square Kilometre Array telescope, a telescope in the desert which I think would be the most powerful in the world and enable us to see further into the universe than ever before.  Why is that so important?

CHIEF SCIENTIST: It’s important because as your listeners may know the universe is like a symphony and it’s a very complex system and it sends out information for us to in some sense listen to, although perhaps see is a more relevant analogy when you’re talking about telescopes.  At both the high frequencies, the sort of flutes and violins if you like and at the low booming frequencies of the tubers and base violins.  And the comparison there is that a radio telescope like the Square Kilometre Array is at the booming end of the spectrum.  It’s like the tubers and the bass violins.

And the universe encodes different pieces of information in different sequences and we need different ears – different telescopes – to listen to what the universe is telling us at those different frequencies.  We need a telescope like the Square Kilometre Array to actually be able to probe one of the earliest phases of the universe’s history called the ‘epic of re innovation’ and this is a time when most of the universe was in fact neutral hydrogen and there were very few stars around indeed.  And in order to listen, to probe and to make maps of what the universe looked like in that very, very early time only a radio telescope will do.  That’s why we’d be quite excited to have it here in Australia.

MARES: And this raises one of those wonderful things about astronomy that I only realised recently talking to a colleague of yours from Melbourne University, Rachel Webster who’s also keen on this telescope.  And that is when we look into the universe when we look at distance we’re actually looking back in time.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: That’s right.  The universe is so large and so old that the time it takes for light to reach us from these very distant sources is many billions of years old, because it takes light that is the fastest thing we know of that long to travel those vast distances.  So when that light, when that electro magnetic radiation in the case of radio waves for the SKA – when it reaches the telescope here on earth it’s been travelling for 11 billion years, say.  And as a result at the time it was emitted the universe was very much younger than it is now and so that’s what we mean when we say we’re looking back in time.

MARES: Fascinating stuff.  I hope you still get time to look at the stars every now and again.  Professor Sackett, thank you very much for your time.

CHIEF SCIENTIST: It was a pleasure, Peter, thank you.

MARES: Professor Penny Sackett is the Chief Scientist for Australia and you will find a link to her website, the Chief Scientist website that is and to Professor Sackett’s recent speech on climate change that we discussed on the National Interest web page http://www.abc.net.au/rn/nationalinterest/stories/2009/2534043.htm