Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to express my deep concern about science in this country. Every government acknowledges the importance of science in today’s and tomorrow’s increasingly technologically dependent world. From the Labor Party we have had the usual empty slogans: ‘clever country’ and ‘evidenced based policy’. It is interesting to note that evidence based policy was first mentioned in Hansard by one Mark Latham. However, when the glib reassurances are brushed away, what is exposed is a scientific community being compromised by the short-sighted policies of those who know little to nothing about scientific research methods. The recent budget is a classic example of this government’s determination to financially starve the bodies capable of providing hard data for policies and the scientific and technical expertise to take Australia well into the post-industrial era. In fact, the word ‘science’ is not even mentioned in this year’s budget. There has been a reduction in funding for the science sector from 2.63 per cent to 2.56 per cent of total government expenditure.

Under the budget measure of so-called responsible economic management, the CSIRO will suffer a cut of $9.486 million in 2008-09, followed by similar amounts over the next three years, to a total of $39,813,000 over the full period. CSIRO’s staffing will drop from 5,700 to an estimated 5,615 in the year ahead. If the budget cut is combined with the $23.6 million cut under the increased efficiency dividend, CSIRO faces a loss of $63 million over the next four years.

The actual losses to science are in the closure of a horticultural research lab near Mildura, with the loss of up to 30 jobs, and a beef research laboratory at Rockhampton. The move was denounced by the CSIRO Staff Association, which said that work at the two laboratories contributed to Australia’s food quality and security. You would think that would be very important in this day and age. CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Jeff Garrett conceded the cuts would have an ‘adverse impact on research’. The President of the CSIRO Staff Association, Michael Borgas, said closing the laboratory at Merbein, near Mildura, would hurt the local horticultural industry. Virtually the entire Australian dried grape industry relies on CSIRO clones and varieties. Dr Borgas described the closures as ‘lazy, knee-jerk management’ and attacked the budget cuts. The federal opposition was also scathing, with my colleague Senator Eric Abetz highlighting yet another Rudd broken promise. He said:

Labor promised to revitalise the CSIRO, but have done the complete opposite.

Annual appropriations for ANSTO will fall from $185 million in 2007 to $174 million, but cash reserves will increase net resourcing by almost 46 per cent. ANSTO loses $7.315 million under ‘responsible economic management’ and a further $11.3 million out of the former nuclear collaborative research program. Shortly after the budget, ANSTO announced a restructure and the confirmed loss of around 80 staff in the future. Nuclear physicist Professor Leslie Kemeny said in relation to the ANSTO budget cuts that this federal government appears opposed to nuclear technology and the prospect of nuclear power. He is not telling us anything new there. He said:

It does seem to me that nuclear has been pushed to one side. It hasn’t been mentioned in the Budget, and some of our top scientists were appalled at the fact that nuclear did not get a mention in the Budget.

Professor Ken Baldwin of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies is concerned that these cuts ‘represent a reduction in our scientific capacity in the country’. He said:

We’re particularly concerned about the effect that this might have on rural and regional areas—

in other words, the areas that Labor does not give a damn about. Under Labor, ANSTO now stands for ‘Anti-Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’. Of course, it is not just science but all sorts of innovation that is hitting the budget skids. In a terminal case of ‘it’s Howard so we hate it’ petulance, Labor has already dumped the very successful Commercial Ready scheme.

In short, national leaders in science and technology are coming out and decrying the Labor government’s slash-and-burn budget, which could do irreparable harm to Australia’s future. The future is science and technology, not glib slogans. The Labor Party has long put outdated and irresponsible ideology ahead of the wellbeing of our country, and its intransigent opposition to nuclear power, reflected in the ANSTO cuts, is even criticised by senior Labor figures. Former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called for a debate on the benefits and risks of nuclear power as an alternative energy source, saying that he wants the merits of nuclear power canvassed. He said:

... the world’s got to debate whether uranium-derived power is more dangerous than coal. Coal is looking very dangerous.

Mr Carr said a new energy source needs to be found because alternative power sources such as wind, solar and hydrogen are not yet viable options. He said:

You can have a wind farm across all of outback New South Wales. It’d kill every Kookaburra, but it wouldn’t provide the base-load power we need.

And yet the very organisation that could drive this valuable source of power is being cut back. Science is dead; long live political correctness.

With the Australian Research Council the government did its well-worn pea and thimble trick, with an initial budget measure provision of $10.7 million set to substantially rise in the subsequent three years to reach $326.2 million in total over the full period. At the same time the new government has cancelled the Research Quality Framework management program and redirected funds to an Excellence in Research for Australia Initiative. There is also an allocation of $209 million over four years to double the number of APAs for masters in research students. That is a good initiative; however, there is no increase in the value of scholarships for students, despite claims that the support level is set too low.

The National Nanotechnology Strategy established by the Howard government in 2007 will cease next year. This will save the government $11.7 million. This is another vendetta against Howard that is typical of Labor and is a scientific and economic disaster. Mike Ford of the Institute of Nanoscale Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney, said the cut was short-sighted because:

... there’s no doubt Europe, the US and Japan are putting a lot of money into these types of initiatives, and we’re going to fall behind.

Nanotechnology is already worth more than US$40 billion globally and could reach US$1 trillion by 2020, according to a government report. The OECD describes its applications in materials manufacturing, computer chips, medical diagnosis and health care, energy, biotechnology, space exploration and security. But the ACTU is against nanotechnology, isn’t it? So we see the two forms of technology most likely to improve our future, nanotechnology and nuclear energy, being thrown into the bin by this ideologically driven bunch of troglodytes and luddites.

No area of government is safe from a Rudd review. These programs are working well but are now subject to, or victims of, yet another of this bloodless bureaucrat’s relentless ream of reviews. Just to add the icing to the keep-the-facts-out-of-politics cake, the Australian Bureau of Statistics had a $22 million cut. As far as the evidence based policy goes, there is no evidence of it. Which technical or research body did the government consult before blowing millions of taxpayers’ dollars on the hybrid Toyota Camry? This was supposed to be an energy-saving and emissions-lessening exercise that would also provide jobs—excellent, except the scientific facts do not bear this out. The evidence shows that the policy decision would not give any environmental gains at all.

There have been many other decisions made for show and photo ops rather than good policy based on sound evidence—the alcopops tax hike and, worst of all and most ridiculous, the politics of envy behind means-testing the solar panel rebate. We now know that the solar tax rebate cut was just a cynical pre-election promise which was amended and then gutted. That is how many Australians feel about this policy dishonesty—angry and gutted. The evidence clearly shows that this government is totally ideologically driven, and hopes for the smarter, cleaner, richer, advanced technology Australia have been dealt a cruel blow by this backward-looking budget. (Time expired)