Coral Bleaching on the Great Barrier reef

When the science makes you look bad, simply bully the scientists into submission. This morning, the ABC revealed the Australian Institute of Marine Science had released a report on the health of the Great Barrier Reef ahead of time and leaked it to sympathetic media outlets, following pressure from Environment Minister Sussan Ley’s office.

Documents released under Freedom of Information laws show the independent statutory authority’s release of the report was brought forward to coincide with Ley lobbying UNESCO to reverse a threat to declare the reef “at risk”.

It’s another instance of the Coalition’s questionable relationship with scientific bodies, and a public service all too responsive to the political objectives of ministers. 

The background

For years, the Great Barrier Reef has become another battleground in the Coalition’s culture war on climate change. It is obvious the reef is in serious danger — it has lost half its coral since 1995. In 2019, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park downgraded its assessment of the reef’s health from “poor” to “very poor”.

But Ley, and the Coalition, have repeatedly tried to downplay the risk to the reef. In June, when UNESCO threatened to declare the reef “in danger” — because the science very clearly says it is — the government complained and blamed China. 

Ley then went on an ultimately successful lobbying tour to convince the world the reef wasn’t under threat. UNESCO’s decision, however, simply spared Ley some short-term embarrassment. The body’s world heritage committee will consider an updated report from Australia on the reef’s health next year. 

AIMS were dragged into the thick of Ley’s lobbying campaign. In their internal correspondence, staff describe the process of releasing the early report to The Australian as a “leak.”

“It’s not ideal but we have to comply,” the agency’s CEO Paul Hardisty said in correspondence.  

News Corp publications then selectively represented AIMS’ findings to argue that reports of the reef’s death had been exaggerated. But the organisation’s own scientists said any positive findings about coral growth were not part of a long-term trend.

Greens Healthy Oceans Spokesperson Peter Whish-Wilson said the pressure on AIMS and UNESCO was a “sorry crusade” to cover for the government’s reputation on climate change.

“If a federal minister can distort a scientific outcome to suit their government’s agenda and not be held to account, we are doomed,” he said.

But while AIMS is an independent agency, kowtowing to the minister is exactly what their enabling legislation allows for. The agency’s powers to do things necessary to its functions — which include carrying out research and development relating to marine science — are all subject to any directions by the minister. Ley is well within her rights to tell them what to do. 

Government ‘politicising science’

AIMS’ capitulation is hardly surprising. Instead it’s another instance of how politicised the Coalition’s relationship with science is. In 2019, the government pushed a Senate inquiry over farm runoff into the reef, which effectively undermined the conclusions from its own scientific experts. Two years later, they’ve gotten the experts to bend to their will.

Government scientific agencies face a choice between carefully toeing the party line, or facing sustained attacks from grandstanding Senators. As Crikey reported last week, the Nationals have recently ratcheted up their attacks against the CSIRO, over tenuous research links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its support for fake meat. 

Whish-Wilson told Crikey the Morrison government’s consistent interference with scientific processes to suit political objectives was an attempt to “gaslight the world”.

“How would you feel being a scientist who has had your life’s hard work bastardised by a government intent on abusing it for their own political ends?” he said.