Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The science and research community have been holding their breath recently. Numerous programs were paused as the government looked around for ways to achieve a politically motivated surplus. This comes on the back of previous years where there were threats to health and medical research grants, in particular, that would have disproportionately impacted on my home state of Victoria, and the electorate of Melbourne, which is home to some world-leading health and medical research facilities, as well as generally excellent research institutions.

Unfortunately, as we have seen recently from MYEFO, a deep cut was made to research funding for universities—$499 million from the Sustainable Research Excellence in Universities scheme over the next four years. That is half a billion dollars. The SRE scheme was announced in 2009, and is designed to help universities pay for costs associated with doing research: water, electricity, property costs, IT and other infrastructure. These cuts will come into effect almost immediately, with a $79 million decrease in payments in 2013. This approach from Labor to funding research in Australia is short-sighted. While the money for research grants that directly supports people and projects has been maintained, the funding for the infrastructure that enables this research has been slashed.

When you talk to researchers, they will tell you that this infrastructure funding is critical. It is what keeps the researchers in their job, and able to do their job. When one goes to the private sector or to philanthropists to ask for money, researchers will tell you that it can be notoriously difficult to get funding for this kind of infrastructure, perhaps because it is not as attractive or sexy as funding a direct research cure, but it is essential, because, without it, the research does not take place.

The Group of Eight, which represents some of Australia's leading universities, believes the research cuts will result in the loss of around 1,450 job opportunities. The University of Melbourne, one of the most research intensive institutions in the country, will lose between $90 million and $100 million over the next four years, and 200 planned jobs may have to be abandoned. This is coming straight from the people who are directly affected. As the University of Melbourne Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Jim McCluskey said: 'Victoria is a very research intensive state. We are disproportionately hit.'

Professor Hilmer has said, 'These short-sighted decisions will have adverse long-term consequences for Australia’s performance internationally in research, and will also adversely impact on Australia’s economic capacity and make our universities less attractive to international students and researchers'.

Professor Daine Alcorn, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President, Research and Innovation at RMIT, said that the cuts were 'devastating':

This is what provides support for the overheads – the electricity, the water, the space you live on – for all of these programs. Cutting $499 million over the next four years is really taking back a promise the government gave to actually fund this kind of research in an appropriate way. It will have a devastating effect.

Research is an investment, not a cost. There are serious economic, environmental and social benefits that come from investing in Australian research. Every dollar that goes towards health and medical research, for example, results in more than two dollars in health benefits. The economic benefit of government investment in the cooperative research centres has exceeded a return ratio of three to one. When the government paused all grant funding, many researchers worried about their jobs and the future of their work.

The situation has been particularly discouraging for young researchers who are struggling to establish their careers, and many have already begun to look overseas for more attractive job offers.

If we treat research in this country as a funding tap that can be turned on and off, then the benefits will not grow and our best and brightest will not stay. And if we treat it as a honeypot to be raided every time we need to find money to bring forward a political surplus, then confidence in the sector will suffer. We have seen today the welcome release of the government's Asian century white paper, which has references all through it to innovation and research and how we are going to position ourselves over the next 20 years. But we will not do that unless there is secure funding that researchers can rely on, not just from year to year but from three years to three years and five years to five years. If we are put in this position, where every time there is a need to come back to a politically motivated surplus it puts researchers at risk, then we as a country, and especially as a state in Victoria and a city in Melbourne, will suffer.

The Greens value research. The Greens will defend research. I am pleased that this motion will attract the support of others in the parliament. The government should quarantine research from cuts over the next few years.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to second this excellent motion and concur with what my colleague from Melbourne has said in his speech. In this country we have three choices. First, we can provide the right research framework that will encourage talented researchers and innovators who are home-grown, as well as those from overseas, to work in Australia delivering economic benefits for Australia and better healthcare for Australians. Second, we can bury our heads in the sand and pretend that we do not need a plan or additional funding to keep the research sector punching above its weight and globally competitive. Or, third, we can threaten to cut funding to the health and medical research sector on a regular basis, creating uncertainty and insecurity for jobs in the investment; we can play games with existing funding by freezing and unfreezing funding for such things as the NHMRC grants; we can add layer upon layer of additional red tape to the already significant regulatory burden, as evidenced by the increased time and money required to implement a clinical trial in Australia. Sadly, the government has taken the third approach.

Research, and in particular health and medical research, is, as the McKeon consultation paper so accurately puts it:

… vital to support innovation, performance improvement, and curtail escalating healthcare costs.

This consultation paper goes on to point out that the economic benefits also flow from:

… productivity gains that accrue from having healthier people in the workforce and community, and wealth creation from research commercialisation and associated employment.

The coalition understands the importance of this. There was a fivefold increase in funding committed to health and medical research under the previous coalition government.

According to the Association of Australian Medical Research Institutes we are currently ranked as one of the top countries in the world in biomedical research, producing three per cent of the world's published research, but this is all now at risk. At a time when the McKeon consultation paper states that within the next 10 years we ought to be investing $2 billion to $3 billion more per annum in research, the government has just ripped an additional $1 billion out of research and university funding. I would like to quote from one university, which has written to me and said:

The effects for the university sector however are alarming as the reduction in money available for research will have downstream effects on our campus, which is an integrated health research precinct consisting of a hospital, a medical research institute and a university department—all working together to improve health outcomes for children.

In addition, we rely heavily on research higher degree students and the reduction of funding to students will be detrimental to the research outcomes of our campus. We are very concerned about how this reduction in funding for research will play out, especially in light of the recent McKeon review calling for a massive increase in health and medical research funding.

I have also received correspondence from other research institutes and from medical research bodies and I quote from another:

We are concerned that the $1 billion cuts to projected research and university funding announced by the Australian government in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook statement will affect the maintenance of the excellent standards of medical research in Australia.

This is just a small sample.

Addressing the Australian Innovation Festival, the Prime Minister talked up innovation as being one of the keys to increasing productivity, sustaining our international competitiveness and improving our standard of living. I agree with her on this. She went on to say:

The tertiary education system has a central role in the Australian innovation system; Universities, the CSIRO and Cooperative Research Centres have a dual function of knowledge creation through research, and knowledge diffusion through teaching or consulting to business.

The question then has to be asked: why has the Prime Minister ripped out $1 billion from universities in the latest MYEFO update?

How does the Prime Minister reconcile her actions with her words? Without medical research, we would not have such lifesaving innovations as penicillin, first used as a medicine by the Australian Nobel Laureate Howard Walter Florey. Nor would we have the bionic ear, the cervical cancer vaccine or spray-on skin for burns—just to name a few. It is a shame that this motion was not able to be brought before the House prior to last week, prior to the release of MYEFO, prior to the $1 billion of cuts that this government has announced to try and paper over the economic incompetence that has led to over $150 billion in net debt.

Medical health and research and Australians for generations to come should not have to pay the price for such incompetence. Research is critical to our future in this country; it is critical to innovation. In Victoria, we are very fortunate to have such a hub of institutes focused on doing this important research, and that needs to continue.

Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a privilege and a pleasure to stand in the chamber today to speak about an area of government endeavour that I think is incredibly important to the future of our nation, and that is science and research. It is unfortunate that we are in a situation where the arguments being put are going to be at loggerheads, but the fact is that it is an area about which there should be more debate in this parliament.

Scientific research involves endeavours that try to create an economy that is smart, that provides jobs for the future, that provides jobs which are of high quality, that provides the opportunity for people to realise their capacity and that ensures Australia remains at the forefront of research internationally. These are all important goals. I guess the question is: how do we get there? And I think there are other questions, such as: where have we been, and what does that say about the way forward into the future?

In terms of the motion moved by the member for Melbourne, I cannot do anything other than agree wholeheartedly with his point (1), which:

… affirms that science is central to our economy and prosperity and that government investment in research is central to maintaining and growing Australia’s scientific capacity;

That is an absolutely central part of what needs to occur with respect to scientific research and investment into the future. But I guess this is where we will start to differ. The questions then are: how do we do it, and what has actually been done? When we talk about the question of what will be occurring into the future—and mention was made of MYEFO and the announcement made by the government at that time—we can say that there have been some adjustments and that some of those adjustments have led to, if you like, cuts into the future with respect to what was projected to be expenditure in some of these areas. What we firstly need to understand is: let us not gild the lily here.

Scientific research is expensive. It is expensive because it is important, and it is expensive because it goes to the question of expending now in order to make excellent and important discoveries into the future. Sometimes that expenditure will, on the face of it, be large; but it is important. On the question of what has been occurring around funding—and here I pick up on points made by the member for Higgins—I will go to a recent press release from the minister responsible, Senator Chris Evans, where he says:

This Government has invested more than $43.2 billion in core university funding from 2008 to 2011—that's a 50 per cent increase on the previous four years under the Howard government.

In the four years from 2012 to 2015 we will invest a further $58.9 billion—that's $30.1 billion in additional funding for universities, more than double the level of funding under the last four years of the Howard government.

So when we look to the question of what has been done in this area, we can say firstly that this government has an exceptional record with respect to funding for the university sector. It has an exceptional record in terms of supporting research. Is there more that can be done? There will always be more that can be done in this area. Frankly, from my point of view, there will always be more that should be done. But I think we also have to acknowledge what has been done and what is being done. And so, from that, I again quote the minister:

Close to $880 million in ARC Discovery and Linkage grants and $154 million in CRC grants will support the research effort, ensuring continuity for ongoing projects as well as new investment in key scientific and research priorities.

The perceived problems in the motion which relate to aspects of what was being talked about as to what might happen have largely not come to pass. With respect to some of the issues around grants being frozen, and the funding for this year and the future has largely been maintained, and that has occurred in very difficult budget conditions. When we look at Sustainable Research Excellence funding—which was mentioned—this year's SRE funding has not changed. SRE funding will be indexed from the 2012 level of $163 million dollars and adjusted upwards to achieve the government's objective of $300 million in 2016.

The move is forward, the move is upward and the move is onward to ensure that we do put significant support into the scientific and research sector. Can more be done? Yes. Should more be done? Yes. When will that be done? In the years ahead. But there is absolutely no doubt that the commitment of this government with respect to the scientific and research sector is there for all to see. When we look at the record of the previous government, we can show that in fact what they did then was nothing like what they said they would do.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on Labor's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook decision to freeze funding for vital Australian university research and development. I particularly draw attention to the short-sighted, cynical political decision to withdraw or freeze funding for university, medical and academic research on which this country totally depends to underscore its reputation as a bright country, not just a lucky country.

This government tries to justify huge undisclosed taxpayer subsidies to the motor vehicle industry as it throws away a smart future for this country. The car industry here is no longer viable and needs to reform itself to reflect the reality of global economic conditions and trends, but not at taxpayers' expense. Now this government has ripped $1 billion out of university research and student support funding in a desperate attempt to fill its budget black hole.

The latest victim of these cuts is the world's leading cutting-edge solar cell technology project at the University of New South Wales. A total of $24 million allocated to this vital new research area has been put on hold indefinitely thanks to the Labor government's obsession with a worthless surplus. This decision to kill university research funding for the vital research on which this country depends for its economic future means the future of hundreds of thousands of young careers are on the chopping block and the birthright of a younger generation who will rely on the jobs that would have been created has been stolen.

The Labor debt pile is mounting by $100 million a day, excusing the $2.4 billion that has been cut from education and training funding, of which $1 billion comes from university's research and student support. Australia has a unique skills set and is world class in innovation across biotechnology. This field includes therapeutics, devices and diagnostics for human and agricultural use, as well as industrial and environmental technology.

We excel in engineering, nanotechnologies, IT, telecommunications and manufacturing. Continuity of government funding is an absolute prerequisite because of the high risks and length of time to market. Those options are now being denied to start up, and early stage companies are facing increasing scarce venture capital at early development stage. Fund freezing will delay major programs that are potentially huge revenue winners domestically and at export level. Previous coalition and Labor federal government programs such as the Innovation Investment Fund, R&D Start, Commercial Ready, COMET, Biotechnology Innovation Fund and now Commercialisation Australia have been welcomed by the biotech sector, as well as all areas of innovation. They have played a vital and significant role in ensuring the continuation of innovation in this country.

The sudden closure of Commercial Ready in May 2008 left the biotech sector—indeed all areas of innovation—without a program for nearly two years, until the Commercialisation Australia program commenced in January 2010. More than six months were wasted because of the funding delay in bringing this program back up to speed. Some companies shut down as a direct result and many jobs were lost. The impact on the sector was significant and damaging. This government has taken from universities and research institutions vital programs such as the Sustainable Research Excellence program, worth $498.8 million.

Also, the facilitation performance funding from 2014, worth $270.1 million, will be deferred; student support for masters research degrees at $167 million will be deferred; and start-up scholarships, worth $82.3 million, will be frozen.

Australia's pharmaceutical sector, dependent on institutional or clinical research in this country, is another vital sector affected by these cuts. In 2011-12, exports of pharmaceutical and medicinal products totalled $4.1 billion, up from $3.7 billion the year before. Pharmaceuticals are now firmly established as a high-level export earner, about four times the value of motor vehicle export sales, which continue to fall. Asia takes half of Australia's exports, and industry believes there are opportunities to multiply exports five-fold by 2020. Investment in research has underpinned the improved quality of health care for Australians over the past 50 years and has a fundamental role in improving the future effectiveness and efficiency of the $130 billion health system. An additional dollar spent on research has a multiplier effect by driving efficiency and new practices, compared with an additional dollar spent on general health care. Investment of an additional $2 billion to $3 billion a year on research for the health system is required within 10 years— (Time expired)

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As my colleague the member for Bruce said a few moments ago, this government has a very credible track record in supporting science and research investment in Australia. The member for Bruce quite properly referred to a media release of 22 October, just over a week ago, from Senator Chris Evans which pointed out that funding to universities has increased by 50 per cent compared to the last four years of the Howard government. In four years, from 2012 to 2015, the government will invest a further $58.9 billion in university funding. I think the statistics tell the real story. Those statistics are indisputable.

Speaking to this motion, moved by the member for Melbourne, I too share the view that science is central to our economy and our prosperity. As a participant of the Science Meets Parliament program each year, and as a frequent attendee of scientific briefings by the CSIRO and other similar scientific institutions here in Australia, I well understand the importance of research and how it is, indeed, a wise investment into our future. Having mentioned the Science Meets Parliament program, I take the opportunity to thank and commend four young scientists—namely, Stephanie Kermode, Sondos El Safar, Lyndsey Vivian and Declan Clausen—for taking the time to meet with me earlier this year and explain to me the scientific work each of them are engaged in. What particularly impressed me was the passion and commitment each of them had for their fields of science.

The motion also refers to medical research. I also take this opportunity to speak about the new South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute complex being constructed adjacent to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital. On 3 August 2012, I represented the federal Minister for Health, Tanya Plibersek, in joining South Australian Premier Jay Wetherill and South Australian health minister John Hill for the tree-topping ceremony, marking a significant point in the construction of the building which will be the new home to the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute. Having been given a full briefing and tour of the partially constructed building, it is clear that this will be a state-of-the-art medical research centre that will engage in world-leading research, with the capacity to employ up to 600 researchers. That facility is only possible because of $200 million of federal government funding. That facility will be, I believe, a leading facility throughout the world for research. In speaking to some of the researchers that are going to be working within the building, I know of their excitement and their appreciation of the federal government support for that new facility.

Another similar research facility—again funded by this government to the tune of $40 million—is the new Materials and Minerals Science Building at the University of South Australia in my electorate at Mawson Lakes. The new facility, which Minister Chris Evans opened on 6 August, sets new benchmarks for collaborative learning, research, innovation, sustainability and excellence, and it will complement the globally recognised work of the Wark Research Institute and the Mawson Institute.

Those are two very clear examples of direct funding by this government into research facilities that will be of huge benefit to Australians into the future. Again, they are facilities that would not have been possible were it not for the commitment of this government to research and science.

The third area I want to very briefly touch on is the investment made by this government in many of the science facilities in secondary schools. I can talk about, within my own electorate of Makin, the new science facilities at Para Hills High School, Scoresby East High School, Banksia Park High School, Valley View Secondary School and the Golden Grove joint campus facility shared by Golden Grove High School, Gleeson College and Pedare Christian College. I have been to all of those facilities and I note all of them have multimillion-dollar additions to their schools which will enable science based learning for their students, which is an investment in the future scientific research that will be undertaken here in Australia. In fact, only last week I was at Valley View Secondary School's new electronic technology facility opening where I saw for myself how that school is working very closely, as many of the other schools are, with both the industry sector and the universities in terms of developing science based careers in this country. The member for Bruce outlined some of the contributions made by the government to research but I am aware that more broadly, when it comes to health and medical research, the government is, in fact, maintaining all-time-high levels of funding to the National Health and Medical Research Council in the 2012-13 budget and that the budget commits $771 million to the NHMRC for health and medical research. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the member for Melbourne's motion. I congratulate him on the words that he has put together in this motion, calling on the Treasurer to 'guarantee that science and research funding will be protected this financial year' and calling on the Treasurer to 'rule out any attempt to defer, freeze or pause' research grants for our science and medical facilities. The problem is that the member for Melbourne has been gazumped by the Treasurer. Only last week we had released the MYEFO, in which we have seen $500 million worth of cuts to our research funding, and it goes further than that. With the freezes taken in, we are looking at about $1 billion worth of cuts that this government has made. Universities Australia have said the research freezes and other cuts would slash $1 billion from our universities. Is this the time when we should be cutting funding given the need for our research and development? I have an interesting quote from Universities Australia chief executive Belinda Robertson:

By reducing research funding we are cutting the very area that provides us with the greatest hope of underpinning long-term industrial diversification and economic transformation.

The chief executive is right. This is not the time for us to cut funding for our research. Why are we cutting it? As the member for Melbourne notes in his motion, it is 'an attempt to achieve a budget surplus'. Those on the other side of this House have not delivered a budget surplus for over 21 years. An entire generation of Australians have not seen a single budget surplus from those on that side. In fact, what they have seen over the last four years are combined deficits of no less than $174 billion—and here we have this latest attempt to achieve a budget surplus which we all know is nothing other than a political charade, a fix, an accounting fudge and a money shuffle by transferring money from one year to the other to come up with what they expect as a $1.1 billion surplus.

What if they were even to achieve this $1.1 billion surplus? We know, following the brilliantly designed mining tax which has failed to raise even one single cent, that they have already spent the money, so we know the surplus has gone and we know it is a fudge but let us take them at their word that they do achieve this $1.1 billion surplus. To undo the damage of the last four years with the $174 billion in deficits they have run up it is going to take us over 120 years to repay, so that is for that $1.1 billion surplus, just to undo the damage of the last four years.

Although government funded research is important, we must make sure that it is targeted to improve the productivity of the nation and to improve health outcomes. We must make sure this research is not wasted.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons we are in the budgetary mess that this government has made is the great waste created from their grants program. In the time remaining, I would like to go through a few of the grants that this government has handed out over recent years. We have seen this government hand out a grant for $85,000 for a study of garden statues in Renaissance gardens. We have seen this government hand out a grant for $185,000 to produce a biography on Labor opposition leader Doc Evatt during the 1950s and how his life resonates with modern challenges in a time of global warming. I am not sure what Doc Evatt's life has to do with global warming. We have also seen a grant of $65,000 for a study of who reads books by Thomas Keneally. I myself have read books by Thomas Keneally, but do we really need to spend our research grant money, taking away money from cancer research and from other important areas of research that our economy relies on, on a study of who reads books by Thomas Keneally? And then there is my favourite: a grant of $60,000 for the study of Marxism and religion and the relationship between theology and politics. We need to get rid of these grants and get the focus back on the things that are important to our economy.

Debate adjourned.