Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues) Share this | Hansard source

They didn’t. CSIRO reviews its research portfolio annually. Research projects sometimes cease; the investment is redirected into another area of similar research. So the million dollars that the member for Jagajaga is referring to, relating to the investigation of water-splitting technology, has been redirected into another renewable energy research project. So it is exactly the same amount of money in another renewable energy research project.

This attack on CSIRO is quite out of bounds. CSIRO is our premier scientific organisation. It rates in the top one per cent of scientific organisations around the world in 13 out of 22 areas of scientific research. In fact—the member for Jagajaga refers to the investment in solar thermal technologies—it was announced today that CSIRO has been awarded an additional almost $3 million in the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate to be applied to solar thermal technologies. CSIRO is leading the world in a range of technologies, not only on variable energy but renewable energies, and has the government’s complete support.

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