House debates
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Business
Rearrangement
3:14 pm
Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I move:
That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Melbourne moving the following motion forthwith—
That private Members’ business item No. 12, Government investment in research, standing in the name of the Member for Melbourne on the Notice Paper, be returned from the Federation Chamber and considered immediately
There was a motion that everyone thought we were going to be voting on today. That is a motion that, amongst other things, notes the growing concern amongst the science and research community about security of funding. The important and operative part calls on the Treasurer to guarantee that science and research funding will be protected this financial year and rule out any attempt to defer, freeze or pause Australia Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council or other science and research grants in an attempt to achieve a budget surplus.
This was a motion that was debated in October last year. This was a motion that the selection committee recommended for a vote. This was a motion that was expected to turn up on the Notice Paper today. But, when we turned up, the motion was not included on the Notice Paper. There are a number of potential reasons for that. One might be that the motion was likely to succeed. I anticipate that there will be a significant amount of support from the crossbench, and I understand the coalition may even be supporting it as well. If that is the reason for its omission, that is of concern. Private members' motions in this place that have been through the proper process and have been waiting since last year for a vote ought not be pulled simply because of the potential outcome. I also know, of course, that there has been a recent reshuffle and that there is a new science and research minister. But this is not a motion that calls on the science and research minister to do anything. It is a motion that calls on the Treasurer to make certain guarantees.
It is urgent that we suspend standing orders and vote on this now, because now is obviously the time that the government is beginning the process of preparing the budget. Budget preparation time is a time of growing and great consternation amongst many in the science and research community in this country. In MYEFO we saw the sustainable research excellence program cut by half a billion dollars over the forward estimates. Two budgets before that, scientists and researchers had to mobilise in their lab coats in their thousands around the country to prevent mooted cuts to health and medical research.
In our view, the reason that we are in this problem where the government is looking around at places like science to save some money is because of the failure to secure the country's revenue base and raise the money that we need to fund the services and expenditures that Australians expect. One of those, which is in my electorate of Melbourne but especially in Victoria, is the area of science and research. We need to be clear that science and research ought not be a honeypot that governments go back to every time they need a bit of money to make the budget balance. Science and research will be a foundation of a clean economy and will set us up for after the mining boom. The cuts of course hurt jobs. The cuts to the sustainable research excellence program are going to hurt, according to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at Melbourne University, with somewhere in the order of 1,400 jobs being threatened. Those jobs are just as important as jobs in the manufacturing industry. It is not just the cuts, it is the speculation—
Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Madam Speaker, I raise a point of order. I do not wish to disrupt the member for Melbourne's time, but I do not have a copy of the motion that has been moved, so it is not clear to me what the implications are. Perhaps it could be indicated whether there is a seconder for the motion and then, if we could get a copy of it once it has been seconded, that might suit the convenience of the House.
Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Melbourne has the call and, if he could make available a copy of the motion to the attendant, could the attendant take the copy and photocopy it, please.
Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I have a copy of the motion available here. The cuts to sustainable research excellence are going to hurt somewhere in the order of 1,400 jobs. It is not just cuts but speculation that hurts jobs as well because, if you are researcher wanting to start out in Australia, you should know that, whoever is in government, your funding is going to be secure. You should know from budget to budget that the whole of the parliament treats science and research with sufficient importance that it is not going to be tinkered with from budget to budget. Every time there is speculation in the lead-up to the budget it affects the choices that people make and it affects the ability of external investment, especially from the private sector, to join in and invest in world-leading health and medical research that goes on in Australia, especially in Victoria.
What I hope is that we have the opportunity in this parliament to put some of these issues beyond doubt and take them out of the realm of party politics, and that is what the motion is intended to do. The motion intended to lay the groundwork for the budget. It was not even calling for an increase in funding, but just calling for no cuts. That should be something that is very easy to be agreed upon and, if we agree upon it now, it will give a lot of people a lot more security over the coming months. So, I do hope that this House allows this motion to be brought on, not only to allow the processing of private members' business in an orderly fashion so that when we think a motion is going to be voted on it is voted on, but also to give some security to the scientists and researchers around this country that we are not going to come back and raid them and their budgets time and time again simply because we have been unable to secure this country's revenue base.
3:20 pm
Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Madam Speaker, I second the suspension of standing orders to shine the light on the government and on their real attitude to health and medical research funding.
Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
In this country we have three choices. First, we can provide the right research environment that will encourage talented researchers and innovators who are home-grown, as well as those from overseas, to work in Australia delivering economic benefits to Australia and better health care for Australians.
Mr Champion interjecting—
Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Wakefield will leave the chamber under standing order 94(a).
The member for Wakefield then left the chamber.
Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Second, we can bury our head 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, as the Labor government has done, to the health and medical research sector on a regular basis creating uncertainty and insecurity for jobs and 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 burdens, as evidenced by the increased time and money needed to successfully implement a clinical trial in Australia. Sadly, the Labor government has taken this third approach.
It is important to suspend standing orders because, under Labor, universities and medical research institutes have been subjected to waves of funding uncertainty. In the budget last year, the federal government froze research grants from the Australian Research Council because of overly aggressive and short-sighted budget decisions, and played games in the national media with the National Health and Medical Research Council grants. Treasurer Swan could have made realistic budget assumptions and hard decisions around the budget in May, and allowed all in the community to plan accordingly. Instead, he took a 'fingers crossed' approach, as he always does; and, when it became clear again that he had got his figures wrong, our researchers and research institutes had spent months focusing on contingency plans and exploring offshore jobs rather than on their research activities. This pattern of continuing uncertainty has reduced Australia's capacity to attract and retain the best and brightest talent internationally.
It is important to suspend standing orders because, despite the fact that in last year's MYEFO the Treasurer finally unfroze those research grants, unfortunately he then proceeded to cut over $1 billion from the Australian university sector, much of it used to support health and medical research directly or indirectly. Extraordinarily, the Treasurer's short-sighted decision came in the same month that the Chairman of the CSIRO and 2011 Australian of the Year, Simon McKeon AO, released a consultation paper for the Strategic Review of Health and Medical Research funding, which called for an increase in research funding over the next 10 years of $2 billion to $3 billion per annum. Health and medical research is critical to Australia's future and should be a strategic priority. With a hub of world-class universities and research institutes based in Melbourne, it is particularly critical for Victoria.
We need to suspend standing orders because, importantly, we in Australia are very good at medical research. Thanks to Australian research, we have life-saving innovations such as penicillin, first used as a medicine by the Australian Nobel laureate Howard Florey; the bionic ear; the cervical cancer vaccine; and spray-on skin for burns, to name just a few.
The coalition understand this. There was a fivefold increase in funding committed to health and medical research under the previous, coalition government and under the former health minister, Tony Abbott. We also understand that we need a full-scale assault on the bureaucracy and red tape, which divert time and funding from valuable research and are marring clinical trials. Commercialising research can lead to direct wealth creation and jobs growth. Importantly, it can also reduce spiralling healthcare costs and deliver a higher quality of life. It is a pity that those opposite do not agree.
A coalition government will protect the funding of Australia's medical research. We recognise that funding for medical research is the best long-term investment a government can make in the health of the Australian people and we do not understand why the government will not bring on this vote. Could it be that they are too scared to face the Australian people on these terrible cuts, the cuts they continue to threaten to make, the cuts they continue to deliver, to this very important research sector which is, critically, a pillar of our nation's economy? It is important that we shine a light on the government's record on medical and health research funding, which is why we must suspend standing orders today.
3:26 pm
Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I am opposed to this Greens-Liberal alliance motion that has been put before the parliament here today. I am opposed because, since this parliament first sat in 2010, not once have we come in here and broken the protocols that have been established and have functioned effectively to deal with private members' business. If the crossbenches carry this motion—
Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Yes, it is a process motion; it is a suspension of standing orders. So, yes, genius; you've worked it out! It is about the process and the procedures. That is what is before the parliament now: if a member is able to come before this chamber and move a suspension of standing orders to deal with any number of private members' motions that are on the Notice Paper, without notice to the 150 members of the House of Representatives, without an opportunity for them to know in advance that this particular motion or private member's bill will be dealt with, then what we will be doing is going against the whole reason why we have private members' business. The whole principle of private members' business is that members of parliament should be entitled to put up motions before this House, that they should be dealt with by this House, and that each and every member of this House should be entitled to give considered judgement as to whether they should support or oppose a particular motion.
That is what we have and that is what this government has put in place with the support of the opposition and the crossbenches. That is the process that we have put in place—an orderly process that has seen 242 hours set aside for private members' business. For one in every four hours that this parliament sits, we are dealing with private members' business—one in four.
The matter of public importance put forward by the opposition today, I note, is about superannuation. They say it is important; well, why are you voting to knock it off? If you vote to suspend standing orders to bring on private members' business rather than the matter of public importance that has been put forward by the member for Dunkley, then you are saying that that is more important. What is more, you are inviting every member of this place, including government members from time to time, including members of the crossbench, to come in here and work out when it is appropriate and convenient for them as individuals to bring on a vote, and votes will be brought on.
So I say to the Manager of Opposition Business that he needs to think very carefully about supporting this Greens motion that is before the parliament today, because this is an unprincipled position for the member for Melbourne to take. The member for Melbourne knows full well what the process is: people get to vote on motions for which notice is given on the Notice Paper that that vote will be held.
Today it is a fact that, prior to question time, we did not get to the process that normally occurs whereby we have votes on some private members' motions. The reason is that, as people would be aware, I was hosting the Indonesian Minister of Transportation. I was with people including the Leader of the Nationals, who met with the Indonesian transport minister, and we had a function that included the heads of all of the regulatory agencies here in Australia as well as our visitors from Indonesia. That included the member for Gippsland, who was invited to represent the opposition at the function.
In terms of the processes, if we support this motion from the member for Melbourne, what will happen is that, from time to time, to suit anyone's convenience, we will just bring on a vote. The fact is that, after items are debated, the government facilitates private votes in government time. That is what we do. Indeed, in 2012, we had 62 private members' bills and motions voted on. Do you know how many we had in 2005 under the former government? Zero. Not one—not one motion and not one private member's bill. Yet we do it in an orderly way. The member for Melbourne knows that this vote will take place next week or at some other time, in terms of budget bills, when it is scheduled and notice has been given. In the last two sitting weeks of 2012 alone, we voted on 11 motions.
I say to this parliament that private members' business is important, but I say this too, and I know that the Manager of Opposition Business agrees with me: it is not just about private members' motions, because private members' motions do not impact on or direct the executive government in terms of budget bills. The Manager of Opposition Business knows that, House of Representatives Practice indicates that, and we all know that that is the case.
In this parliament this morning we were debating the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Had this motion not been moved by the member for Melbourne, we might have been able to get back to it after the MPI debate, to deal with and facilitate people's participation in that legislation. There are 46 speakers on the list for the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill. We have before this parliament the education bill dealing with the Gonski reforms. We have a range of government business before this parliament, and I say that we have facilitated votes from the crossbenches in an orderly and timely way. We have facilitated that, but what we will not do is come in here—with notice given, to be fair to the member for Melbourne. He told me prior to question time that he was intending to move this motion. I thank him for the courtesy of doing that. But, if this happens with the member for Melbourne, who is, with due respect to the Greens political party, one member in this House out of 150, then there is no reason why the other 149 should not be able to have their motions dealt with according to their convenience and whenever they want.
The member for Melbourne has not put forward a single argument in his address, nor did the supporter of the Greens political party motion, the member for Higgins, for why this was urgent, why this had to be dealt with today and could not wait until next week—not one. They talked about the policy idea, which is actually not the motion that is before this parliament. It is a motion for suspension of standing orders that is before this parliament. But, with regard to the substance of debate, we are happy to have a debate about higher education, science and medical research. We on this side of the House, of course, have created 146,000 extra university places since 2007.
I say to the member for Melbourne that this is a stunt to facilitate substance for the media release that was put out this morning by the member for Melbourne saying that he was going to do this. But, if we are going to have this and the Manager of Opposition Business is going to back this up, other people are going to be encouraged to do it as well, which means that this time will be dealt with and wasted rather than dealing with issues of substance.
The poor old member for Dunkley tries and tries and tries to get an MPI. They finally give him one on a Thursday arvo, and now they are knocking him off. The MPI usually is given to the National Party on Thursday afternoons, I notice, so that the other members, their coalition partners, can leave early, but I am sure— (Time expired)
3:36 pm
Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I join with the Leader of the House in opposing this motion. The Leader of the House, on behalf of the government, has said that we are more than happy to discuss science funding at an appropriate time—and why wouldn't we be more than happy to discuss science funding? Why wouldn't this government be more than happy to discuss the record $1.72 billion of support to university research and training through its grants in 2013?
Why wouldn't we be happy to discuss the $879 million in funding to the Australian Research Council for the Competitive Grants Program in 2012-13, or the record funding of $736 million to the CSIRO this year, or the fact that since 2008 we have provided more than $300 million in additional support for the research workforce by doubling the number of Australian Postgraduate Awards by 2012 and increasing the stipend from $20,000 to $24,000 with indexation? They are just a few of the initiatives of this government in science and research.
As the Leader of the House indicated, we have made record investment in higher education, which the Howard had government ripped up. It was one of the few Western governments to reduce funding for higher education in real terms, and we had to reverse that when we came to office. On this side of the House, we understand the importance of science and research to being a country which is innovative, which believes in science, which believes in productivity.
This is a debate we are more than happy to have. The member for Melbourne has been told that. The Manager of Opposition Business has been told that. Instead what we see today is a Liberal-Greens stunt. Instead what we see today is an attempt to pull a stunt in the House of Representatives, to knock off, as the Leader of the House said, my honourable friend the member for Dunkley, who has a rare MPI. He had the MPI on small business taken off him yesterday by the Leader of The Nationals. This is a stunt for no good purpose. We can have this debate. We are more than happy to have a debate about science funding. We are more than happy to have a debate about science and research. If I were the opposition, I would not want a debate about science and research; I would want a stunt just like this, and that is what they have done—pulled a stunt on a Thursday afternoon as a distraction.
Science and research are important. I am very proud to be the science and research minister in this government, because this government has a proud record in science and research, and we are going to continue to invest very solidly in science and research, unlike the Howard government, which cut, slashed and burnt funding for science and research. I am very proud of the fact that this government has appointed a Chief Scientist, that this government has embarked on record funding in science and research.
Mr Billson interjecting—
He says, 'Do you talk to him?' I had a meeting with the Chief Scientist yesterday, Member for Dunkley. That is something else that we are more than happy to talk about in this place in a debate on science and research. This is a government which has also secured, on behalf of our nation, a very remarkable initiative—the Square Kilometre Array, one of the great scientific developments in this country.
Jane PrenticeChris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I thank the honourable member opposite for her support for this very important initiative, which is a great step forward for Australia's scientists. This is a serious debate which we are more than happy to have. This is a serious discussion which we are more than happy to go to.
Ms Anna Burke (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The time for the debate has expired. The question is that the motion be agreed to.