He then learns he cannot speak publicly and honestly on his findings. This unwilling silence has the unfortunate effect of having him apparently endorse inadequate government policies that fall well short of what experts are advocating.

That is apparently what happened to former CSC chief scientist and Climate Change Authority member Professor David Karoly.

He told The Canberra Times he was told not to speak out on what he described as the Coalition's "complete and catastrophic failure" to act on global warming for the past nine years.

This pressure apparently came from political sources and from within the CSIRO bureaucracy. The CSIRO recruited him to head its newly-funded Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in 2018 but would not allow him to say the government's policies had done little to cut emissions.

"I had to be extremely careful about what I said and what I did," he told The Canberra Times.

When asked why the CSIRO wanted a senior scientist to stay quiet about how the government's climate change policy stacked up against the science a spokesperson said: "In order for us to remain an independent and bipartisan trusted advisor we need to remain impartial and therefore to ask that our people do not advocate, defend or publicly canvas the merits of government or opposition policies."

This broad brush approach to gagging intellectual freedom and debate embodies the nightmarish logic of 1984 and Animal Farm where truth is lies, love is hate, two is three and some pigs are more equal than others.

It would be impossible for a person in Dr Karoly's position to comment on Australia's climate change trajectory without straying into the political realm.

Climate and energy policy have effectively framed the national political debate for the better part of two decades.

The CSIRO's statement is almost Kafkaesque in that one would have thought key elements of his role would have been to advise upon climate change policy, to ascertain what was working and what was not, and to make his findings public.

There was no conceivable reason outside the obvious political sphere for Dr Karoly to be gagged. Don't the people have a right to know how effectively the great and the good are dealing with an existential global heating crisis?

One of Dr Karoly's most intriguing allegations is about what happened when he was asked to appear on the ABC's Q&A program while working for the climate science hub. "I was told I couldn't go on," he said.

On telling his superiors he would appear in his private capacity as an honorary professor at the University of Melbourne he was grudgingly granted permission; but only after he agreed to two hours of media "retraining" to make sure he stuck to the CSIRO's line.

While, according to the CSIRO, media training is offered to its scientists to provide them with "the skills needed to translate their scientific research so it is accessible to the community" the intention on this occasion seems to have been anything but.

Dr Karoly, who is adamant that "If we want a resilient Australia ... what we have to do is address climate change", says the rules applied to him need to be changed so the public can be better informed by the scientists directly.

He's right. Facts, not political spin, should be driving climate emergency policy and debate.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: