At a dinner in Canberra last October, Prime Minister Tony Abbott urged the country's already wary scientific community to judge his government by its performance, not by its titles. He was referring to a decision he had taken just weeks earlier not to appoint a dedicated science minister for the first time in decades.
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Instead the portfolio was divvied up. Innovation Minister Ian Macfarlane would look after science, Education Minister Christopher Pyne took on research and Health Minister Peter Dutton absorbed health and medical research matters.
It was a move that put the scientific community on edge. But this is not a profession accustomed to drawing conclusions based on one test alone. Further assessment was needed.
Plus, to be fair, Labor had had its critics. Former chief scientist Penny Sackett revealed she never met with then prime minister Julia Gillard and that she met Kevin Rudd only once when he was in the top job. The CSIRO also lost 513 positions after a Labor government-enforced efficiency drive.
Labor's CSIRO efficiency drive was followed by an Abbott government recruitment freeze. Then, in the Coalition government's first budget, the agency took a $111 million hit to its funding over four years. Sure, there was a sweetener - if you work in medical research. The headline-grabbing $20 billion medical research fund it to be partly funded from the controversial GP fee. But months after the budget was tabled, the GP co-payment, which is to pay for a sizeable chunk of the fund, appears on shaky ground.
To date the government's actions when it comes to science have spoken louder than their words. Or, in the case of the Howard-era national science council, inaction.
Known as the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, the group has not met once under Tony Abbott's watch. On Tuesday it was disbanded.
But while one council was unceremoniously knocked off, another was born. Enter the Commonwealth Science Council.
To be chaired by the Prime Minister, the council much like it's predecessor includes the ministers for industry, education and health as well as Chief Scientist Ian Chubb and head of the Business Council of Australia Catherine Livingstone. There are scientists too, among them Nobel prize-winning astronomer Brian Schmidt, the inventor of the cervical cancer vaccine Ian Frazer and endocrinologist Professor Timothy Davis.
However, notable absences from the new council are the chiefs of the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.
Australian Academy of Science's Les Field, for one, was pleased to see Mr Abbott would be chairing the new council himself. And Mr Abbott has promised to attend at least one council meeting a year.
But given what the scientific community has been through since the Abbott government was sworn in, is a quick name change enough to reassure the country's scientific community that this is a government that takes science seriously?
According to government, the new council will be the pre-eminent body for science in the country - its role to advise on science and technology. Whether the government chooses to listen to that advice is another thing.
