Meeting Parliament

On 16 and 17 March, the CRC's Climate Change Project Leader, Dr Jo Luck represented the CRC at the annual Federation of Scientific Technological Societies (FASTS) ‘Science meets Parliament 2009' (SmP) event at Parliament House in Canberra.

SmP brings up to 200 scientists from all over the country for face-to-face meetings and forums with Parliamentarians. This opportunity allows scientists to witness national decision making, and to inform this process on important scientific issues.

The first day of this event was aimed at honing the science ‘message' that participants were to deliver to their nominated parliamentarians. The program involved journalists and advisers to past and present politicians who provided useful advice on effective and persuasive communication. The participants ranged from Australian astronomers studying galaxy cannibalism, to biologists constructing scaffolds for stem cells adhesion to designers of energy neutral housing.

On the second day of the event, Jo was able to speak with three Parliamentarians who had nominated ‘Adapting agriculture to climate change' as a topic they were interested in. Jo met with Mr Jim Tourner member for Leichardt, Senator Anne McEwen (SA) and the Hon. David Hawker member for Wannon who nominated her team's work as an area of interest. The Victorian member was interested in the CRC climate change research since it was a proactive and positive approach to dealing with climate change rather than the pessimistic projections from impact assessments which he thought were too overwhelming for the community (and politicians) to engage with.

Overall, as a scientist, Jo found the experience very worthwhile and enjoyable and in particular valued the advice on getting a research message across to politicians.