adelaide

McGauran: oversaw two rounds of cuts.

Australia's Coalition government, led by prime minister John Howard of the Liberal party, has been plunged into crisis following the forced resignation last Friday (26 September) of Peter McGauran, Minister for Science and Technology, in the wake of the departure of two other ministers.

McGauran first denied charges of falsely claiming personal allowances for official travel but then admitted some, including having billed the government for a charter flight on which National party officials — not himself — had travelled. McGauran became the third ministerial victim of the controversy over travel irregularities following Opposition attacks, and the first science minister ever to resign.

The government's disarray over the resignations means that the replacements for McGauran and the other ministers are not expected to be announced for a week.

McGauran had served 18 months in the post, and overseen two rounds of cuts to research funding, but was respected by leaders of the scientific community. Although science policy was not a cause of the crisis, McGauran's actions have made it one of the focal points of the political controversy.

Only a month ago, he announced a new research reactor costing A$300 million (US$215 million), the largest government commitment to a science and technology facility in Australian history (see Nature 389, 109; 1997).

According to John Stocker, the chief scientist, speaking before McGauran's resignation, the minister had not sought advice on the reactor proposal from him or the official advisory body, the Australian Science and Technology Council, which Stocker chairs and which carried out two substantial studies of nuclear fuel, science and technology 12 years ago.

Martyn Evans, the Opposition spokesman for science, says the Labor party and the minority Democrats are seeking a Senate inquiry into the reactor decision. Speaking at the congress of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, being held in Adelaide this week, Evans said: “Further delay and confusion while a new minister settles in will add to the pressure on the research community.”

Scientists are alarmed about the vacuum created by the departure of their minister at a time when contentious recommendations of major reports were due to be resolved by McGauran and his senior minister, John Moore (see Nature 388, 509 & 819; 1997).