- Target:
- Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
- Region:
- Australia
- Website:
- www.cla.asn.au
The Defence Trade Controls Act of 2012 and the Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act of 2015 go into effect on 2 April 2016.
See http://bayesian-intelligence.com/bwb/2015-05/iffst/ for more information and links.
To The Honourable Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull,
We are concerned about the likely adverse impacts of the Defence Trade Controls Act (DTCA), 2012, and the Amendment Act of 2015, scheduled to go into effect on 2 April 2016.
These Acts put at risk fundamental research and education in science and technology in Australia.
Despite years of review and consultation, many of the most pressing problems raised remain unaddressed. Researchers and educators are about to be put at explicit legal risk of imprisonment and heavy fines for doing nothing more than teaching and engaging in research as they have freely done for decades.
As Geoffrey Robertson QC said recently, the DTCA is
“so sloppily drafted that it is a real threat to academic research which has no sensible connection to military technology. There should, at the very least, be an exemption from criminal penalty for those who are engaged in legitimate education or research exchanges.”
The DTCA is supposed to bring Australia into line with the UK and US treatment of military and "dual-use" research, that is, civilian research that might be put to military purposes. However, both UK and US law have safeguards for fundamental research and education, which the Australian law omits.
US law (ITAR 120.11) explicitly protects fundamental research, i.e., "basic and applied research in science and engineering where the resulting information is ordinarily published and shared broadly within the scientific community."
UK law (Export Control Act, Section 8) likewise protects "the communication of information in the ordinary course of scientific research."
If the Australian government is to foster an "ideas boom", it should be rewarding innovative research in science and technology, not stifling it with legal risks.
We request that the Australian law exempt fundamental research and public education, bringing it into accord with UK and US law, before irreparable damage is done to science, technology and education in Australia.
Sincerely Yours,
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The Support Science and Technology in Australia petition to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was written by Kevin Korb and is in the category Science & Technology at GoPetition.