Paradoxically, the science behind decisions — how they’re made, and how to make better ones — is something Australians are really good at. We’re world leaders. In the scientific Olympics, Australian environmental scientists are medal contenders. And in the emerging science of decision theory and environmental decision making, we’re world class, we’re on the podium in every single event. The leader of this discipline, the person behind the whole approach who is the director of the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and editor of the pre-eminent journal Conservation Biology — he’s an Aussie. And the professor who championed environmental decision making, a mathematician who broke down complex issues into a series of simple steps and showed the world how to do it? He is also an Aussie, now chief executive of the world's biggest conservation non-government organisation, The Nature Conservancy. Government decisions must be based on evidence. Credit:Louie Douvis But how can this be? How can these gold medal decision scientists hail from the same nation that’s making increasingly poor, increasing indefensible decisions? The answer involves a concept central to scientific inquiry: independence.

Independent advice ensures defensible decisions. Governments are based on this, appointing dozens of committees comprising hundreds of learned specialists. On taxation and domestic violence, on anthropogenic climate change and renewable energy. And on threatened species. Until last week, I was a member of one of these committees, the Threatened Species Scientific Committee, appointed by the NSW Minister for the Environment. We met every month and worked though determinations detailing which populations, species and communities were threatened and which threatening processes were implicated. Loading Every meeting, without fail, the chair asked for any conflicts of interest to be declared. This was important — this ensured independence. Any declared interests were tabled and minuted. I recall one of these declarations — it related to a species that we would be discussing, that a member of the public had nominated as a threatened species. One of my colleagues on the committee had once signed a local petition as part of a grassroots campaign to raise public awareness about this particular species. After due consideration, the chair decided that this person’s perspective on discussions relating to this species may not be independent, so this person was excused from all discussions relating to this species, leaving the room when nominations were made and voted upon. That is the standard we worked to. Contrast this transparent independence with the opaque back-room deals currently characterising Australian public policy. Donations, declared or otherwise. Commitments from minor parties brokered behind closed doors.

With our decision makers operating by a very different set of rules to their advisers, public trust is forsaken and the populace disengages. Decisions become reactive, playing to populist sentiment. And then the advisers disengage. Although this incremental loss of transparency and independence has been happening across the policy landscape, the environment seems to bear the brunt of dodgy decisions. Does the name of any other government department change constantly? Are any other departments demoted by incoming governments? When it comes to the environment, contentious approvals at state and federal level are assured, despite clear scientific advice to the contrary. Scientists have repeatedly explained that if you keep on clearing the bush and mining prime agricultural land, that ecosystems will collapse, clean air, clear water and food security will all be compromised.