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Professor Deborah Terry at the
National Press Club in Canberra.
Photo: Mick Tsikas/AAP
‘We’re here to help’
Universities Australia chair urges
government to listen to the experts.
By Wade Zaglas
U
niversities Australia chair Professor
Deborah Terry spoke at the
National Press Club recently about
how academic expertise and evidence
can provide governments with the best
defence against current and future threats
to humanity.
In her speech, ‘Let’s Dare to be Wise:
Evidence and Expertise are our Best
Defence against Future Terrors’, Terry began
by referring to the recent catastrophic
bushfires and the current threat presented
by Covid-19.
“And what challenges we have already
faced in 2020 – even though this year
is still young – from the most terrifying
bushfire season in living memory here at
home, to the global threat from the new
coronavirus – Covid-19,” she said.
“It has now claimed over 2500 lives,
infected around 80,000 people, led to
travel restrictions for 780 million people
and caused enormous anxiety.”
Terry went on to say that the “big
challenges facing humanity are at an
18
alarming juncture”, and alarms, when
used soberly and cautiously, give us time
“to think, to plan and to act”.
After describing the alarms sounded
by Australians’ lived experience of this
summer’s megafires – families marooned
on beaches waiting to be rescued,
countless homes reduced to cinders, and
lives lost – the UA chair said that such a
catastrophe was predicted in the evidence
base “of our most informed experts, from
our fire chiefs, scientific researchers and
public health officials.”
Terry implored us to listen to the
evidence-based predictions of experts,
“for their expertise is our best defence
against future terrors”.
The chair’s speech then shifted to the
“gift of expertise”. She spoke, for instance,
about the hazardous smoke levels that
affected Canberra this past summer, with
residents experiencing Air Quality Index
ratings well over 4000, when safe levels are
no more than 200.
Terry pointed out that such information
would not be available if it weren’t for apps
such as AirRater.
“And where did the government-
recommended AirRater app originate?” she
asked. “It was developed by researchers at
the University of Tasmania.”
Terry explained how university expertise
was being deployed to fight the new
coronavirus. She mentioned the scientists
at the University of Queensland trying to
“develop a vaccine in record time” and the
work of epidemiologists from the ANU and
the University of Melbourne’s Peter Doherty
Institute for Infection and Immunity who
are liaising closely with health authorities.
“They’ve provided timely evidence and
advice to anticipate the likely trajectory of
the virus, map its path, and understand
more about how it operates,” Terry said.
“We are so grateful to each of these
university experts who have shared their
knowledge to help Australia and the world
contain this threat.”
After providing these examples,
Terry emphasised that the strength of
expert research is that “it never sits still”,
as “researchers are always striving for
greater understanding, greater clarity and
greater certainty”.
“So when the overwhelming majority
of expert researchers in a field tells us
they have very strong confidence that
something is happening, they don’t do
so lightly.”
To underscore this point, Terry
spoke about professorial fellow Ross
Garnaut’s predictions in a 2008 report
of megafires threatening Australia’s
future. Sadly, they have turned out to be
“unerringly accurate”.
She also mentioned that in Garnaut’s
latest book, Superpower, the evidence of
how climate change will affect Australia has
been updated and indicates the country
“is one of the most vulnerable developed
countries to climate change”.
Terry warned that challenges such as
climate change and coronavirus are among
the biggest facing humanity, and said the
expertise of university communities will be
critical in facing these “complex” problems.
“And so to the government and to the
parliament, we say: we’re here to help,”
she said.
“The expertise of our university research
community is a resource for the nation.
“We want you to tap into that resource.”
The UA chair’s speech also covered
topical issues, including freedom of speech,
academic freedom, collaborations between
universities and the business sector, and
the economic and cultural contributions
of the tertiary sector, as well as the ability
of universities to promote ‘soft power’
diplomacy and globalisation. ■