Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk a little bit about the process surrounding the approval of Bjorn Lomborg's ironically named 'Consensus Centre' in the University of Western Australia. I want to reflect a little on the very interesting matters that came out of last night's estimates. I compliment Senator Kim Carr for his very fine forensic performance in trying to extract data on an issue where clearly the federal government is extremely reluctant to provide any clarity. It certainly is quite extraordinary that, when we are talking about funding of an academic institute, we should see such an extraordinary level of secrecy surrounding it. But Senator Carr did get some insights.

One of the most interesting things that came out last night was indeed that the decision to fund the $4 million was made before any university partner was found for the Consensus Centre. So, as it was put by the public servant last night, the decision was made by government to support a methodology. Here we had a particular methodology that the government had decided to support—a methodology which, I might add, has been called into considerable question in other parts of the world. Indeed, the very methodology that was embraced by this government has in fact been defunded by the Danish government, such is the concern about the scientific rigour around this.

Senator Birmingham wheeled out a number of red herrings which have become the standard defence of the government about this process. Last night, they talked about a number of different facilities which had been funded by government and under Labor governments. In particular, they focus on two. They focus on the Whitlam Institute. Senator Birmingham talked about the Whitlam Institute and how that had been funded under Labor.

Can I just contrast the Whitlam Institute. The Whitlam Institute actually was created during the Howard government, and it was created by the University of Western Sydney in collaboration with our former Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, who had gifted all of his records and papers to the university for historical research. This was not an institute dreamed up by the government. It was a subsequent funding of a very, very reputable university, the University of Western Sydney, which had done as we do for all of our prime ministers. We establish a facility that becomes the repository for their papers and for the research into issues surrounding the period of government in which they were at the helm—quite proper. It is a completely different set of circumstances. It was developed, as I say, during the period of the Howard government. Indeed, it may have got some funding during the Labor government, but it was funding to a university for a well-established tradition in this country of having prime ministerial libraries.

The next one that is trotted out is The Conversation. It was said that this is similar to the funding of The Conversation—again wrong. The Conversation was established quite independently. It was a collaboration between the CSIRO and four universities, and its aim was to provide a vehicle for popularising—or making more accessible—university research. It was a very, very smart idea, I think, to create that. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 13:09 .