If the 2007 election is about Australia’s future, then science is a major blank spot on the campaign maps of both sides of politics.

As things stand, the main political parties appear to assume we can have a future without having to invest a lot more in science. There have been odd dollops of funds or pledges here and there, but nothing resembling a coherent strategy to invest in substantial growth in knowledge generation.

Take the recent announcement of $5.5 million for taxonomy by Malcolm Turnbull.  It seems sounds reasonable until one recalls that Australia is still 90 per cent unexplored in terms of its biota. Such a sum will do very little to roll back the cloud of ignorance in which we live.  The 18th Century British Admiralty was a lot more concerned to find out what inhabited Australian than recent Australian Governments.

Among the more telling pieces of evidence that the nation is under-investing in science is recent ABS data detailing a 10 per cent decline in general science investment relative to the economy as a whole (GDP) during the past decade.  While everything else in Australia is booming, science is going backwards.

So who is to blame for the growing knowledge deficit?  The politicians who won’t fund it, the scientific community which seems incapable of arguing a compelling case to remedy it, or the industries which benefit from knowledge - but won’t go to bat for it?

The scale of the deficit is suggested in the recent report by the Group of Eight universities (Go8) which advocates a doubling in competitive grant funding for the Australian Research Council and National Health and Medical Research Council by 2012, taking them to a total of around $2.4 billion. If the Go8’s estimate of the need has more substance than a mere ambit claim, it clearly implies that Australia as a whole needs to look at doubling R&D investment from the current $11-12bn to around $24 billion a year within two terms of government.

A downside of calls like the Go8’s is that they encourage political bad behaviour. For decades politicians have dodged the necessity of enlarging the total science cake by funding segments of the research community one at a time.  In advocating a doubling in funding for university researchers alone, the Go8 unwittingly perpetuates the ugly academic tradition of feeding out of someone else’s bowl, rather than working together to enlarge the quantum. It lets Australian politicians off the hook.

This underlines the need to create an independent National Science Council in Australia, to representing the combined views of the scientific sector, fairly, objectively and above all, without fear.

This ought to be the role of the Academies but they, alas, are paid by Government and must of necessity mind their language. They are also too poorly resourced to identify, analyse and answer the big questions of the future.  A new NSC cannot and must not receive any government funds.  It must be free to speak its mind in terms as honest and blunt as the national interest requires.

The closest body today is the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS) but it represents only learned societies, not institutions or individual researchers, and also has inadequate resources. Farmers have a National Farmers Federation, trade unions the ACTU, miners have the Minerals Council, business the BCA, engineers have Engineers Australia, doctors have the AMA and so on.  What is it with scientists they are so slow to recognise what it takes to get a decent hearing from politicians?

If every researcher in Australia donated $50 and if every institution contributed $10k, it would yield $6 million for the establishment of an effective body, with a lot of weight and credibility, capable of advising Australia on where to invest in the knowledge century.

Another vital role is to bring governments to their senses over issues like climate change by providing transparent public advice (where individual institutions or scientists are capable of being gagged). With the dramatic advances in medicine, biotechnology, nanotechnology, IT and other high sciences now bearing down on us, it is clear the existing model of providing confidential advice to semi-deaf politicians will only position Australia at the tail of world technology leaders. Our national progress will be limited to the speed at which old politicians can absorb new scientific concepts.  Frightening thought. In the 21st century, science needs to drive the political agenda, not vice versa.

Australia needs a National Science Council, and it needs it now.  Failing a new institution, in the lead-up to the election it should produce a manifesto, signed by all the key players, of what is needed to built a better national future.

The election is only months away and none of the contestants is displaying much interest in doubling the knowledge base as the key to our future. Without a coherent and informed scientific voice now, the blank spot on the political campaign map will still be there in 2010 – and Australia’s scientists will still be fighting over scraps from one another’s bowls.  

Julian Cribb is adjunct professor of science communication at the University of Technology, Sydney. He edits Australian R&D Review and ScienceAlert.