Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure this bird and snail research was going on when John Howard was Prime Minister, and we did not hear this side say too much about it. The reality is that there is probably a whole heap of research here which relates to something else and is good for this country in some way. The reason that we have science, research, scientists, teachers, professors and universities and we fund them is because it is good for the economy. It is even good for the philistines who sit opposite, the uneducated mob over there, who would actually shut down every school, because that would save money—'Let's just shut down the schools. There's plenty of savings to be made if we have no teachers and plenty of savings to be made if we don't invest in health'!

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