Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I say upfront that Labor will be supporting this bill in the parliament. Nevertheless, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that the Government's mismanagement and politicisation of Australian Research Council grants and failure to adequately support Australia’s universities during the pandemic are causing serious harm to our world-class researchers".

I thank the member for Kingsford Smith for seconding that.

The Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2021 amends the Australian Research Council Act, applying indexation to our research programs while also inserting funding for the 2024-25 financial year. It's routine legislation and it needs to pass at this House to guarantee funding under rolling forward estimates. The Australian Research Council is an independent Commonwealth body and is the centrepiece of higher education research in this country. It funds primary research. It funds applied research. This legislation is essential to supporting its ongoing operations.

The Labor Party supports the council's important work, which is why we support this bill; but, while we're happy to support this particular measure, we're not happy with how the Morrison government has treated the ARC now and in the Abbott-Turnbull escapades before this current manifestation of incompetence and venom. It's a national scandal and it's getting worse and worse. In recent years, we have seen consistent to delays to grant decisions—delays which seem to be getting longer every year. We have seen political interference from ministers, culture war manoeuvres where they are trumping the ARC's independence. We've seen disrespect from the highest levels of government, and it's unfair to all the brilliant, hardworking nation-building professionals in our university system. It's a terrible, short-sighted attack on this country's economic future.

Smart countries know the value of research. They know that it drives economic growth, that it encourages innovation, that it expands our sense of history, human capacity and who we are. But that's clearly not how the Morrison government views research. Last year, the Morrison government delayed the announcement of research grants until Christmas Eve—literally the night before Christmas, like Ebenezer Scrooge in the Dickens novel. You can imagine the uncertainty this because our poor researchers, who didn't know if they still had their jobs in the next year or if their projects would be able to continue. How can you plan your career or commit to long-term research projects when you don't know things until the last minute? You can't. What about rent, food, mortgages and families? All were put in limbo due to coalition incompetence. Our shadow education minister, the member for Sydney, Tanya Plibersek, wrote to the National Audit Office, requesting an audit into the Morrison government's administration of ARC grants. She believed that letter because of her belief that this was a failure of public administration. Unfortunately, the Audit Office denied the request. That was disappointing, but our concerns with the ARC are still there.

On Christmas Eve, the acting minister vetoed six of the recommended projects because they didn't suit the Morrison government agenda or their taste. This was particularly cruel. An enormous amount of work goes into these applications—months and months of planning, editing and writing—and they were denied at the flick of a panda by an acting minister. As Professor Brian Schmidt, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian International University, said at the time:

In a liberal democracy, You make the grant rules, The independent research agency uses peer review to determine funding. It is completely inappropriate for grants to be removed by politicians, unless the grant rules were not followed.

Professor Schmidt is a Nobel Prize winner in astrophysics, so Brian knows a thing or two about research. Professor Schmidt knows just how damaging these arbitrary decisions can be.

And this wasn't a first for this government. In 2018, the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, personally vetoed $4.2 million worth of grants from the Australian Research Council. Researchers described the minister 's behaviour as, 'reprehensible,' saying that it undermined the impartiality of the entire grants process.

This kind of political interference does serious harm to Australia's world-class university research sector. It damages our international reputation and makes it harder for universities to retain and recruit topnotch staff, putting thousands of jobs at risk. The role of the minister for education should be to ensure that the ARC's grant processes are rigorous, fair and transparent—and then, hands off! Obviously, they need to make sure that the council is competent and well run, then they should leave the independent agency to function without unnecessary and cumbersome political interference.

We hear a lot about free speech from the Morrison government, particularly from some of the members patrolling out the front of the parliament in fact. But when it really came down to it and they had a chance to woof the woof, hypocritically, they did the complete opposite. They clamped down on speech that they disagreed with. That's not Labor's approach; we support freedom of speech. That's not as a slogan or in a culture war, but as a fundamental principle of a free society. If Labor wins the next election, we're committed to approving grant applications that are recommended by a rigourous ARC peer-reviewed process. And they'll be delivered on time on a pre-established date—not Christmas Eve, I can guarantee that!—and well in advance of the grant's commencement. That's the Labor guarantee.

But of course we have to do much, much more to support our universities, particularly after the past horrific two years. They have been two of the hardest years in the history of higher education. We know that the Prime Minister abandoned higher education during the pandemic. In its hour of need, he deliberately and systematically deserted it. As thousands of university staff members were losing their jobs, what did the Prime Minister do? He excluded universities from JobKeeper. Businesses with booming profits got JobKeeper—$39 billion in fact—$39 billion went to profitable companies. But universities were coldly left out—a cruel and calculated decision by the Prime Minister.

I don't know what happened to the member for Cook when he was at university, but slaking his revenge has turned out to be a disaster for the sector. Across the pandemic, 40,000 jobs were cut across tertiary education. That's an unbelievable figure: 40,000 jobs. It's a hard number to get your head around. What do 40,000 jobs mean? That's 40,000 homes hit and 40,000 families rattled. Thousands of these jobs were in regional Australia; that's why we've heard so many National Party MPs speaking up about this. I'm just kidding—that did not happen! It was thousands of jobs in those bush areas, in places like Rockhampton, Bathurst, Armidale, Geelong, Warrnambool, Toowoomba and Townsville, and I could go on. Universities are Australia's fourth-biggest export industry and they've been hung out to dry by the Morrison government. Higher education is not a burden, it's an investment that delivers returns.

And so is research. Unfortunately, because of the Morrison government's abandonment during the pandemic, an estimated 7,000 research jobs were lost in the past two years. Departments have been shut down and research institutes, like the National Centre for Flood Research in Lismore, have closed. Under the Liberal Party, Australia has been a difficult place for researchers: a 2016 survey of medical researchers found that 83 per cent of them had contemplated leaving the profession. That is a fair dinkum brain drain flowing from the pen of the education minister and the Prime Minister's office.

The Australian Postdoctoral Reference Survey found that over half of our early-career researchers had thought about moving overseas, and plenty of them have already made this choice. It's an exodus of talent from our shores, where other countries will receive the benefits of that investment. These are the kinds of people who help supercharge our vaccine development, the people who liberated us from the worst of COVID and the pandemic, and we're watching them walk out the door. The truth is that we can't have a strong modern economy without a healthy research system. It's something we desperately need in this country. According to research by Harvard University, Australia has the economic complexity of a developing nation. Australia was between Uganda and Burkina Faso as the 87th most complex economy in the world—87th!

This isn't just an economic risk; it's holding our economy back. As a country, we spend well below the OECD average on research and development. New technology and breakthroughs don't emerge out of thin air; we need researchers to discover them and we need a system that encourages their work. The Liberal Party has never given researchers the support they need. We need a Labor government to do that. We need a Labor government that will invest in our universities again and that will deliver up to 20,000 new university places that will help fill skill shortages and future skill needs by training Australians in jobs, including engineering, nursing, tech and teaching, to name but a few. Those places will prioritise universities offering more opportunities for underrepresented groups, such as people in regional parts. I hope the National Party hears that. People from regional parts of Australia will receive that helping hand so the best and brightest kids from the bush get to go to our universities, as well as kids from remote and outer suburban areas, those who are amongst the first in their families to study at university and, obviously, First Nations Australians. A Labor government will use its $15 billion national reconstruction fund to help translate brilliant discoveries and inventions into new Australian businesses and new Australian jobs. It will put real resources into research and development.

Labor governments have always invested in higher education. Obviously, Gough Whitlam made my university study possible, but we've got a long history of investing in higher education. We've always opened it up to more students from less-privileged backgrounds so that our best and brightest can solve the problems of a modern Australia. We've always supported research. That's our legacy and that's our ambition. Our universities won't be rebuilt under the Liberals, who spent their term in office trashing them. What a legacy! We need a Labor government to rebuild our universities.

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the second reading of the bill and not the amendment. Of course, this is a routine matter for us to deal with on an annual basis. We are, primarily, in this bill, adjusting the expenditure caps on research that are set out in the act. Of course, each financial year we add a new fourth year of the funding cap. We're also happily here increasing the existing ones in line with inflation. So this bill will see a little over $840 million added to what we're investing in research.

I'm very proud to be here, speaking in support of this, because research and the taxpayer funds and support that we provide to research are ever more important, now more than ever, in light of the lessons that we've learnt in responding economically to the challenges of the coronavirus and the very important needs of sovereign capability here in Australia: to be less reliant on offshore supply chains and to be more able and competent to produce more things here, particularly things that we rely on in a crisis. We saw during the coronavirus pandemic how important it was to have supply chains that were onshore here. If a situation like that ever befalls us again, we want to be even more robust than we were this time.

Research is so important in that because, of course, modern manufacturing and advanced modern industries require research for us to have a competitive advantage. This government has already announced, through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative in a previous budget, that we want to be investing in industry capacity in this country, particularly in the six areas that we identified through the Modern Manufacturing Initiative. I want to talk about one of those specific to my home state of South Australia in a moment. All six of them are about building resilience, and they need investment in research to be able to be industries and industry sectors that we can build on and grow into the future. By investing through things like the Research Council, we're going to see those excellent outcomes. It's research not just for research's sake but also for the added economic and industry benefit outcomes from that.

One of the six areas we've talked about is defence and, naturally, as a South Australian, I want to take the opportunity to reinforce how important it is for us to have a sovereign defence industry. The decisions of this Morrison government and previous coalition governments since 2013 have been vitally important for us to build our sovereign defence industry capability in this nation. Clearly, the naval shipbuilding decisions that have been made are the two biggest examples of that, but a whole range of capability acquisitions decisions that have been made in the last eight to nine years have been vital to give the defence industry in this country the confidence that it has a government that is going to invest in it and its capability.

But just as vitally important is research. When we talk about this bill and about investing in research as a government, it reminds us of recent examples like the one the Prime Minister announced at the Press Club last week and, of course, the Trailblazer program. They are examples of us as a government investing in research that partners us with tertiary institutions like universities, such as in the Trailblazers example. The announcement last week by the Prime Minister links universities and agencies like the CSIRO into the commercial sphere to find those great partnerships. Because although we do it in this country, I do believe we can do even better at ensuring that we get a commercialisation outcome from our spend in research and development. Whether that's taxpayer funds, whether it's private sector funds or whether it's the universities, we want to make sure that as we are spending money on research and development we are not just doing the R and the D but are getting the C part as well—commercialisation—and seeing an economic dividend from research when we are undertaking research that has an industry outcome.

So, in fairness, this is going to be more and more exciting for us, for our economy and particularly for my home state of South Australia because, as we are making decisions as a government to invest in defence industry, research and development, I'm very confident that that is going to lead to commercialisation outcomes for businesses that either exist or will be created because of the IP from research and, of course, jobs and economic benefits are going to flow from that.

I have a great business in my electorate called Supashock and it is an example of a business that is growing rapidly because it is undertaking research and development. They are bringing young graduates into the firm every year. They are enhancing their existing products. They are creating new products. They're servicing their existing customers and finding new customers. Just before Christmas, I was at a milestone announcement with the German company Rheinmetall, which partners with Supashock. In fact, they are a minority shareholder in that business. Rheinmetall are engaging with Supashock in contracts right across the world. In my electorate, through Rheinmetall, there will be components and parts made for major defence vehicle contracts across the globe. That is really exciting and it is because Supashock is investing in R&D. They always have a new or enhanced product, which means not only are they an excellent business that are making very good high-quality consistent products but there is always something new coming from them, something exciting that gives them an edge when they are seeking and bidding for various contracts. That all comes from research and understanding—in their case as a business—how vital it is to be investing in R&D and to be always looking for the next opportunity to enhance your product and to get an edge on your competitors. It's even more vital that we as a government are partnering with Australian businesses when they are competing internationally in export markets.

The more that the investment through the Research Council and the other investments that we make in research and development can lead to economic outcomes, the better. I mentioned the Trailblazer program that we announced last year as a government. This is very exciting. Just last week the acting education minister released the shortlist of the universities that are being considered to be one of four selected in the Trailblazer program to receive government funding partnered with the universities. Certainly I'm very supportive of Adelaide university's proposal under that process. It has been shortlisted and is in the final eight. As I say, four will be selected, so I hope it will be successful. It has a defence proposition to put forward which sees us investing as a government, but a far larger amount of money is being unlocked through the university and the industry partnerships brought together for that proposal, that bid into the Trailblazer program, which unlocks way more than the amount of money that we, as a government, will be spending. And it's not just about the dollars and cents when it comes to research; it's also about the capability and the quality of the research that's going to occur. In that case, again, some very eminent, significant defence companies are a part of that bid. I'm very excited for what they've put forward and very hopeful that they'll be successful.

As the member for Sturt, I've been involved in other propositions to government for research funding. Again, I was thrilled last year that the Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition CRC, which was another Adelaide university led program, was successful. That has received Commonwealth funding. It's an example of partnering with tertiary institutions and, most importantly, the private sector. In that case, they are looking at some of the heavy industries, which of course are significant carbon emitters—industries like steel, aluminium et cetera—and how they can transition as we move towards a net zero carbon emissions future. In some cases there are technological breakthroughs that have not yet occurred and that must occur. With cement production, for example, if we're going to do large-scale production of cement in a zero-carbon way, then there are some industrial processes that are yet to be developed. I believe that these kinds of partnerships, which we as a government invest in with the private sector and with the tertiary education sector, are going to lead to outcomes in the sorts of breakthroughs that we need.

Again, I reiterate that these are examples of government being a co-investor in things that involve research to solve problems and that lead to economic outcomes. Most important is when we know that, although we're putting money in ourselves, we're actually leveraging an enormous amount of other money, from the private sector and from the universities. The United States is quite renowned for its tertiary education sector being excellent at converting research and development into commercialisation—into something that can become a business. I do think that we can do better than we already do in that regard. I'd love to see, in this country, that we are enhancing the link between the things that happen at our universities and how they lead to commercial outcomes. The Prime Minister's announcement last week, on the day that he addressed the National Press Club, was about exactly that—creating these linkages between research that's done at universities and commercial outcomes through businesses, whether it's an existing business or a business that is created off the back of IP that is developed through research at our institutions, so that the money we're investing gives us a return as well.

When research funding is focused on industries and breakthroughs for manufacturing, for example—and I've spoken about the Manufacturing Modernisation Fund initiative that we have put forward—we want to see those dollars lead to breakthroughs and lead to an economic return on that. Hopefully, ideally, whatever we're spending on research has a significant multiplier effect when it comes to the economic outcome when that research is successful.

Not all research is going to be successful and not all research is undertaken for economic benefit, obviously. As a government we're an enormous investor in health and medical research. The primary purpose of that, obviously, is to solve the problems and challenges in the health sector and the medical sector. Whether it's developing vaccines or developing new treatments for cancer and other things, that research investment is equally vital. But I'm certainly pleased to see that, as a government, we have an added focus, in the research funding that we invest, on seeing these economic manufacturing outcomes.

We have been a great manufacturing nation, particularly in the post-Second-World-War era. South Australia, and my home city of Adelaide, is one of the best examples of that. We had the GM-Holden factory, and we had very many other significant manufacturing businesses that were very successful for a long, long time. They were impacted by things like opening the economy up and reducing tariffs and by cheaper imports coming from other countries. Whilst I'm very passionately supportive of free trade, it is obviously regrettable that we have lost manufacturing jobs in this country in the more recent decades. But the opportunity for us now is to bring those manufacturing jobs back into our economy. We're going to do that by being competitive, by being more advanced and by having IP and technological breakthroughs by focusing on research and development and leading that through to commercialisation.

In closing: in my support of this bill, I reiterate the point that the way in which we're investing in research, through things like the Australian Research Council, means that, of the research dollars that we're investing, we're seeing—as a government—more and more being focused on the outcomes of that research. We can see an economic dividend coming from it. We want to see, as we're investing in manufacturing R&D, the commercialisation of that. We want to see a new era of manufacturing and a transformation of the industrial capability of our economy through the research dollars that we're investing. I commend the bill to the House.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the bill before the parliament, the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2021. Labor supports this bill. As we have heard, the purpose of the bill is to amend the Australian Research Council Act to apply indexation to approved research programs, as well as to insert funding for the 2024-25 financial year. The Australian Research Council is an independent Commonwealth body. It funds both primary and applied research through the Discovery program and the Linkage program.

The legislation is essential to support the ongoing operations of the ARC. Obviously Labor supports this work; that's why we are supporting the bill. But, whilst I make those introductory remarks, I also want to speak strongly in favour of the second reading amendment. I wish to raise my very real concerns about how the government is treating the Australian Research Council. It has been subject to unjustifiable delays to grant announcements and to political interference from government ministers, and the important work that its researchers do has been completely devalued.

I also want to place on record my growing concerns regarding the lack of support—the fact that this government seems incapable of adequately supporting Australia's universities during the pandemic and the serious harm that has on our world-class researchers. I thank the member for Sydney for the work that she's done in advocating on behalf of the sector. I think all members on this side of the chamber are at one in that we've either heard concerns from or had contact with numerous people in the sector who are basically at the 'break glass' point.

Last year, the government delayed the announcement of important university research grants until—are you ready for it?—Christmas Eve. Talk about taking the trash out on a quiet day! This, of course, caused enormous uncertainty for the 5,000 researchers whose jobs and projects relied on the funding. Then the acting minister—we need to point out that we still have an education minister that has been stood down. We've forgotten about the fact that the minister is not around or not doing their job because of serious allegations. And, even when the minister is here, the education minister seems completely obsessed about only one thing: curriculum—about what's being taught or culture wars at university.

You don't actually hear the government, the Prime Minister or the education minister talking about the value of higher education. It's nonsensical during question time sometimes. It's like listening to a weird Liberal Party branch meeting in which motion after motion is moved or to a Young Liberals or ALSF conference about who can be more right wing in attacking the university sector. Somehow, some members of the government believe that the university sector is a hotbed of communism—that it's trying to indoctrinate young people and trying to take over the world. If it's not that; it's the weird view they have about curriculum being taught in schools. I've said this before: if the government is so concerned about curriculum at schools and the correct right-wing ideology is not being followed—they have been in government nine years. What are they doing? It is just ridiculous. We never talk about education outcomes in this place. We never talk about the impact of cuts to higher education. We just continually see the government on these weird culture wars, trying to whip up hysteria without tackling what not funding our higher education sector means for our nation.

Let's get back to Christmas Eve, when the then acting minister made the decision to veto six of the recommended projects, seemingly because they were not in line with the government's agenda. These applications take a huge amount of time and work from researchers over the course of months, and this government basically has slammed the door in their face. This is a government unafraid of repeating its own mistakes. As I often say, the government is never afraid to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. In this government, back in 2019, Senator Birmingham personally vetoed $4.2 million worth of grants from the Australian Research Council, simply because they did not suit the government's political agenda, or maybe they just weren't to his current views at the time. This behaviour was described by universities and researchers—let's take the politics out of this; let's hear what the sector said—as 'reprehensible' and that it undermined the impartiality of the grants process. This kind of political interference does very real harm to Australia's world-class university research sector. It damages our international reputation and makes it harder for universities to retain and recruit staff, putting thousands of jobs at risk.

The Minister for Education and Youth has a responsibility to make sure that the ARC's grant processes are rigorous, fair and transparent and to make sure the council is competent and well run. I firmly believe that the minister should be approving grant applications that are recommended by a rigorous Australian Research Council peer review process. I will be strongly supportive of Labor's commitment if we are privileged to be elected. Academic freedom is key to a functioning and free society, and I am horrified that the government has seemingly chosen to disregard it in favour of their own personal political ends. Their attitude towards research and their reluctance to invest in it has made Australia an unwelcoming place for researchers and the important work that they do.

I want to focus at some of my remarks now on the practical side of demonstrating to the House and to the Australian community what this government has done to the sector, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. If there were ever a sector that needed government to support them, it's the university and higher education sector. Seven thousand jobs were lost, as we heard from the member for Moreton. Departments were shut down. Research institutes have closed. Sadly, this is another chapter in the government's neglect of research. A 2016 survey of medical researchers found that 83 per cent of them had thought about leaving the profession altogether, while another found that over half of our early career researchers had thought about moving overseas. It publicly said that we were looking at a brain drain in this country. Since then, we have seen this played out, with talented researchers leaving our shores in droves.

A healthy university system is the key to our economy—I fundamentally believe that—our democracy and our society. For conservatives who believe in institutions and the value of institutions, they've got a really funny way of showing it. They've got a really warped view of the way to support institutions in this country. We need to invest in research to invest in our future. New technology and breakthroughs just don't come out of thin air; we need researchers to discover them. Australia's investment in research and development falls well short of the OECD average. Universities are where some of our best minds go to learn the skills they need to help the future of this nation. Universities are one of our most important economic and social institutions. They drive innovation, they generate export income, they encourage new industries and new businesses, and they help educate and train the next generation of skilled workers. But, despite this, universities have been systematically trashed by this government. During the pandemic, the Prime Minister simply left higher education out in the cold.

I am privileged to represent one of the largest growth corridors in the nation: the greater Springfield area in the south-west suburbs of Brisbane and the Ipswich area. Within that lies the beating heart of the University of Southern Queensland's Springfield campus. I pay tribute to the leadership of Professor Geraldine Mackenzie, both to her outstanding leadership and to her leadership team at that campus. I have talked to parents and to students. There's not enough time today for me to talk about international students and the neglect that the government has shown there. Queensland's third-largest income generator is the dollars that come in from overseas students.

If there is one example that I want to leave the parliament with tonight of how the government really disrespected the sector, it is the fact that universities were deliberately excluded from JobKeeper. Casinos got JobKeeper, $39 billion was wasted on profitable companies, but universities were left out. We all know businesses with increasing profits got JobKeeper. We've all seen those stories. Australian higher education has suffered hugely as a result of that one decision to exclude universities from JobKeeper, with around 40,000 jobs being cut across the pandemic. Think about what that means, Mr Deputy Speaker. I listened to the member for Morton's contribution where he spoke about regional centres and regional Australia. When you take jobs out of regional centres, that has a multiplier effect. The government members in this chamber know that. You take out those jobs and it has supply chain issues, and it has huge impacts when it comes to the local economy.

The sheer scale of the livelihoods destroyed by this government is nothing less than shameful. Academics, tutors, admin staff, library staff, catering staff, ground staff, cleaners, security officers and so many others—all out of work. They all had bills to pay, and many had families to support. During the pandemic I've met with a number of families who—through no fault of their own, but due to the woeful neglect by this government—were simply cut out of the JobKeeper program. Thousands of these jobs were in regional Australia. This is Australia's fourth-biggest export industry and Australia's most successful service export. Surely this huge export income alone should have been enough to justify the government's support? But not once did we see one member of the government speak out on this. It is shameful the way universities have been treated.

The money was ripped out not only from universities but also, as I said, from the local economies—the cafes, restaurants, hairdressers and shopping centres that all of these international students would have been shopping in—and all the local students—particularly in regional centres, and would have supported. At the same time, the government also introduced legislation that more than doubled the course fees for thousands of Australians. So it was a double whammy. There was no support for the people who worked in the sector—no support for people who needed that support—and then the double whammy of the increased fees for thousands of Australian students. That legislation originally contained an overall cut to university funding, and it was also targeted at the disciplines the government dislikes.

The government have spent a decade trying to undermine, cut funding to and discredit our universities. When was the last time we heard a question in this place about the outstanding work of universities? It's never discussed by the government. The fact that today we've only seen one token effort by the government—they're not interested in this sector. Their attitude towards higher education is indicative of their attitude across the whole of government: do only what is in their immediate political self-interest and ignore the long-term—or even, in this case, the short-term—consequences of their failures and their neglect of the real issues facing our nation.

We on this side of the chamber have a concrete plan to rebuild the university sector. But, more importantly, we will show the sector the respect that it deserves, including the 20,000 new places under Labor's Future Made in Australia Skills Plan. This work will address the critical issue of skill shortages and future skill needs, by training Australians in jobs in critical areas like engineering and nursing—I know the member for Cooper will be a strong supporter of that—and by making sure that we have quality educators in our country. We also have plans to prioritise universities offering more opportunities for underrepresented groups, which will directly benefit so many of my local communities, those people who are first in family to study, people from First Nations backgrounds. We also want to work with universities, in partnership, on how our $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund can help translate brilliant discoveries and innovations into Australian businesses and, more importantly, provide Australian jobs. There's a core difference when it comes to universities, but our university and research sector know they can rely on this side of the chamber, because we want to work with universities to build our nation and to see more people employed. But we will clearly need a change of government for that to occur.

Zali Steggall (Warringah, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak on the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2021. This bill will amend the Australian Research Council Act to index appropriations and provide a new funding cap, commencing in 2024. These are administrative changes that I support. The Australian Research Council is a statutory Commonwealth agency under the ARC Act. For 20 years the ARC's fundamental purpose has been to grow knowledge and innovation in the national interest and for the Australian community. This kind of innovation aims to underpin positive environmental, social and economic outcomes. The ARC does this by advising the government on research matters as well as administering the National Competitive Grants Program, Excellence in Research for Australia, and the engagement and impact evaluation assessment frameworks. The ARC runs various funding schemes under the banner of linkage programs, which encourage research collaborations between researchers and a range of different styles of organisations, including private enterprise, community organisations and other research agencies.

In 2021 the ARC had its 20-year anniversary, and it has achieved a lot. Since being established, the ARC has awarded over $13 billion in over 29,000 research grants. There are 1,100 research projects funded each year. The Commonwealth invests in research and development in many ways, but the ARC forms a large part of it. The ARC administers roughly 6.8 per cent of the Commonwealth's total investment in research and development. This is a substantial amount. The ARC has partially funded 74 centres of excellence with industry and universities, and centres of excellence foster collaboration between research organisations, businesses and universities. Centres of excellence usually undertake innovative transformation research, and recent centres have focused on issues like recycling and even dark matter.

The ARC supports industrial transformation research hubs, which engage researchers to investigate new technologies and economic, commercial and social transformations. Usually, these are to benefit industry partners. Alongside this are ARC industrial transformation training centres, which help facilitate innovation and postdoctoral training for research industries. The ARC also brokers crucial partnerships between government, business and academia, international institutions and community organisations, with over 9,000 domestic and international partnerships over the last 20 years.

There is a lot to be celebrated. While several reviews into the ARC have highlighted areas for improvement, the importance of the ARC just cannot be understated. Through its fostering of world-leading research, the ARC is central to Australia's innovation performance. Innovation crucially underpins our economic prosperity and wellbeing. It is directly tied to productivity. Just look at how innovation has brought us through this pandemic. From the mRNA vaccines to telehealth, the benefits are clear. Innovation is crucial for both our economic recovery and our long-term resilience as we emerge from this pandemic. The ARC is a fundamental pillar of what I call the new economy. The new economy is forward focused, sustainable, decarbonised and, importantly, built on innovation. It's an economy where our research delivers revolutions in consumer goods and services. It's where our research takes on the big issues of our times: climate change, artificial intelligence, automation and biodiversity loss—and beats those challenges, comes up with the solutions. Breakthroughs like the cochlear implant and wi-fi are many in this economy, and new jobs and prosperity are delivered.

In Warringah we're lucky to have various innovation and research hubs that support this vision of a new economy, from the Lakeba Future Hub to the SEVENmile Venture Lab. They're incubating the next iteration of products, services and businesses. And Warringah's workforce is supporting the new economy, with 23.9 per cent of people in Warringah engaged in professional, scientific and technical services—the leading employer in the electorate.

But more can be done. To fully enact the vision of the new economy requires the Commonwealth government to invest in research and development through agencies like the ARC. Whilst this bill will provide an extra $10 billion to $12 billion per annum in appropriations, it still falls well short of what we need to get Australia ahead of the curve, really leading the way and opening up that door to the new economy. Australia is falling further and further behind the rest of the world on innovation. We were once ranked 17th in the world, according to the global innovation index, and we've slipped to 25th this year. It's no surprise, because Australia's total private and public research and development spend is falling behind that of our global peers.

Currently we invest 1.8 per cent of GDP in research and development, and that's down from a high of 2.2 per cent in 2008. It leaves us at the back of the pack of OECD countries. We are half the average of OECD countries. Israel and South Korea, for example, both have spends of up to four per cent of GDP on their R&D. The impact of this extra investment is noticeable. Many of the world's best tech startups originate in these two pioneering countries.

The economic benefits of investing more in research and development are manyfold. A recent CSIRO report found that, for each dollar invested in R&D, an average of $3.50 in economic benefits came out of it. That is good investment. If we want to have better living standards and protect our environment, our communities and our way of life, we had best innovate—and innovate fast. We can improve our performance by increasing the appropriations for the ARC. Bold investment through the ARC will have immediate effect. An additional barrier is a lack of commercialisation of our world-class research, despite linkage programs supported by the ARC. Collaboration between industry and research institutions underpins innovation, and it will be critical in order to support jobs growth in our recovery and in dealing with our current and future challenges.

So, I support the government's announcement of a $2 billion fund that will take research and facilitate the development of marketable products and services with financial incentives. But let's get real: it's the very least we could do after the pandemic devastated our universities. Additionally, if we're really serious we will engage with national moonshot programs, which are national high-ambition, high-payoff ventures. We can look at doing these in areas of comparative advantage. Some of the sectors we should look at are space, space quantum, quantum, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, clean technology and digitisation.

Future jobs in innovation require advanced science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. Seventy-five per cent of the fastest growing occupations require significant STEM skills and knowledge, and STEM based employment is projected to grow at almost twice the pace of other occupations. Unfortunately, the STEM performance in our schools is lacking. It's leaving a brains gap for business and affecting our innovation, and I suggest it would be a better focus for the government than worrying about ideology and culture wars and how one should be reinterpreting history to suit ideology. STEM is the most important area of our future.

We can't ignore, either, the unfortunately vast gender disparity in STEM studies. According to the Chief Scientist, STEM is still 79 per cent male dominated, and we know that gender and cultural diversity and research drives better innovation outcomes and has been linked to organisation performance. It is a win-win when you fix the gender divide. We therefore need a comprehensive plan to address both the achievement gap in STEM and the gender disparity in participation in STEM. All this should be tied together with a comprehensive strategy to coordinate, plan and outline core objectives for national industry innovation in Australia.

Unfortunately, we can't talk about this bill and this funding for the ARC without discussing the government's poor performance on research grants. Last month, a group of the country's most eminent scientists and researchers spoke out against the minister's decision to block grants for six projects. These projects had been evaluated and elevated for funding by an independent panel. The arms-length process is designed to place funding for the most meritorious projects away from political interference. The announcement of successful grants was also delayed. The researchers should have known in November if they made the cut, and instead they had to wait until Christmas Eve. This is extraordinary. People may not understand why, but it's because delay impacts outcomes. For 30 years, they've been awarded on time, in the fourth quarter. That is what the scientists and people in the sector could rely on. The delayed announcement caused substantial uncertainty for many researchers, who were pinning future research on these grants. So researchers who aimed to collaborate with industry risked losing those very important relationships due to the time delay and through no fault of their own.

If an independent process, designed to be impartial, recommends certain grants, then the government should follow its guidance and award them in a timely manner. Too many times we have seen the Morrison government overrule departments and other bodies just to rort the process with their own cherrypicked selections. We need more accountability to be built into this process. If the minister chooses to reject a grant, he or she should table a statement of reasons setting out a clear rationale for such a move, because the funds we are allocating are public funds and they should be allocated with transparency and in accordance with the process that has been approved.

In conclusion, the ARC plays a crucial role in supporting innovation in Australia. It's part of our new economy. I want to see it be a bigger part of the new economy we are capable of building, but it does require vision and it requires commitment to letting go of the past and actually moving forward towards new technologies. We are limping to the back of the pack with our performance on innovation. This is acting as a drag on our productivity and our economic growth, and so many young people know this and fear this, because they are ambitious; they are hungry for success. I know this because I meet so many of them in Warringah.

We can become leaders once again and ensure decades of prosperity, but only if we embrace just some of the limited policies that I have set out as being part of a new economy. We must consider the challenges we have ahead. We have big challenges ahead, in the next decade in particular, in relation to global warming and climate change, but we also have the skills, the willpower and the smarts. We have the smart workforce to do this. We have the innovation and the R&D. We actually need to let go of the past, be brave and ambitious and look towards building a more prosperous and a clean and sustainable future, and we will do that with innovation.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Federal Labor is supportive of the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2021 which indexes approved research grants and provides funding for the 2024-25 financial year. Whilst these amendments are standard and uncontroversial, the government's continued treatment of the Australian Research Council is anything but.

My electorate of Wills is home to a high number of researchers and academics. They continue to share their frustrations with me about the government's interference with their sector. Delays to grant announcements are of particular concern. Last year the government deliberately delayed announcements about university research grants until Christmas Eve. This was less than a month before grants were scheduled to commence. Up to 5,000 researchers had no certainty when it came to their jobs and research projects.

Furthermore, political interference by successive ministers demonstrates the government's concerted effort to politicise research in this country. In this round of grants the then acting education minister vetoed six humanities grants because they clearly didn't suit the government's agenda. You might ask: who was this acting education minister? It was none other than the member for Fadden, who is known for his fantastic oversight of other government programs such as robodebt! I'm sure if the member from Maribyrnong were here he would be nodding his head at the great job that the member for Fadden has done and the track record he has! He is just one of several Liberal government ministers who have vetoed Australian Research Council grants. Then Minister for Education Tehan intervened in 2020. Senator Birmingham personally vetoed $4.2 million of grants back in 2018. Of course, they are all following in the footsteps of Howard government ministers who did the same thing.

Unlike the Liberals, federal Labor has never vetoed Australian Research Council grants because we respect impartiality in the grants process. We know that proposals can take months and months of planning, and then, in the way that this government is doing it, can be denied with a flick of a pen. This is reprehensible interference. It's not only harming our research sector but damaging our international reputation. How can we attract the best researchers, scientists, educators, students and other professionals when the system is anything but fair or transparent? How can we retain all of those people? It's another example of a government that says they are committed to jobs—they talk about jobs a lot—but everything they do within their power actually jeopardises thousands of jobs. Don't get me wrong, the grant processes should be rigorous, and that is why if elected a federal Labor government would be guided by a rigorous Australian Research Council peer review process in approving applications. We support academic freedom and believe that Australia should be a world leader in research.

Unfortunately, under this government 7,000 research jobs have been cut in the past two years. That's 7,000 people without work as a direct causal effect of this government's policies. How can this exodus of talent be of any surprise when surveys show more than half of our researchers consider moving overseas upon completing study? We need to be investing, not interfering, in academic institutions like universities. They are not just important social hubs but economic ones—driving innovation, fostering new businesses and industries, helping to educate and train people for their jobs. So many people in my electorate of Wills understand that the Morrison government has left our universities behind. When they did finally come to the table with JobKeeper, after a lot of advocacy by the federal Labor opposition, they deliberately left universities out. This has meant 40,000 jobs have been cut, 40,000 jobs that were not important enough for this government to save—academics, tutors, admin staff, library staff, catering staff, ground staff, cleaners, security and many more. These are all real people—so many faces and names I know in my own community who worked in the sector, who have families and responsibilities. They are all now out of work.

And yet, even as education is our biggest service export, this government is only trying to make it harder for Australians seeking an education. Thousands of Australian students are now paying double for courses because of changes made by this government, who originally planned to cut university funding overall. Surprise, surprise, just like in their grant interference, these changes hit humanities and other disciplines that this government ideologically takes issue with. But, unlike this government, we will support universities. We will deliver up to 20,000 new university places under our Future Made in Australia Skills Plan. Sectors such as engineering, nursing, technology and education generally will all benefit as we help fix areas of skills shortages. Of these places, we will prioritise opportunities for marginalised and underrepresented groups.

I know how important this is. Education made such a difference to my sister and me. My parents worked hard and sacrificed when they came to Australia. They did overtime in their jobs. Mum and dad were educated. Dad was a lawyer in Egypt. When he came to Australia, he couldn't continue in that field. He ended up working at Australia Post. He gave up much of his career to put food on the table for us. He and my mum always insisted that we get a good education. We didn't have a lot, growing up as children of migrant parents in public housing, but that lesson was always drummed into us: get a good education, because it opens up the door to opportunity for you, and this country will give you that opportunity. So I worked hard, doing the night shift at the local service station, working as a cleaner, doing all sorts of jobs, to get through university. But access to education meant that, with that hard work, I could have a successful career and give back, in public service, to the country that has given us so much—like so many other Australians who have been given opportunities through education.

As a federal MP, I want to make that a reality for every Australian, including those from regional, remote and outer suburban areas, First Nations Australians and people who are first in their family to attend university, often from a migrant or culturally diverse background. Federal Labor will work with universities to determine how our $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund can support meaningful projects that create jobs and opportunities. Unlike the Liberal government, we will support researchers, academics, students, support staff and everyone else who is passionate about making Australia a world leader in higher education. We will continue Labor's legacy of supporting a world-class education system, one that attracts the best and the brightest, with access for all Australians, to give them that door of opportunity that they can open and fulfil their potential.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Christmas Eve last year we saw a familiar pantomime playing out, of the Liberals again vetoing Australian Research Council grants. This sad and tired pantomime played out first under the Howard government, when Brendan Nelson knocked off nearly a dozen ARC grants. It then happened in 2018-19, when Senator Birmingham and the member for Wannon, Dan Tehan, as education ministers, knocked off another handful of Australian Research Council grants. And now we've seen the coalition do it a third time, with the decision of the member for Fadden, Stuart Robert, as acting education minister, to block six humanities research projects from receiving funding.

Let's be clear about what it means to win an Australian Research Council grant. This is a process that involves several rounds of rigorous peer review from internationally determined experts. Those researchers who put their time into preparing for Australian Research Council grants do so often during summer, giving up their holidays in order to prepare documents, knowing that there is probably only a one in five chance that they will make it through that highly competitive process. I'm aware of this; as a former professor at the Australian National University, I was fortunate to win three Australian Research Council grants and to serve as a reviewer for Australian Research Council grants.

Now, these are referred to as grants, but make no mistake. This isn't like the minister stepping in through some dodgy colour-coded spreadsheet process. This isn't like the minister stepping in after a public servant has spent a few hours or even a few days looking at which grants might be supported. This is a highly rigorous academic selection process in which it is utterly bizarre to have the minister stepping up and knocking off grants.

I pay tribute to the anonymous ARC Tracker account on Twitter, which has very carefully documented the problems we've seen under the Coalition. It has documented the significant delays in the announcement of Australian Research Council grants and documented the way in which those applying for grants have been left at the political whims of the government. The Australian Research Council, at least in this instance, did not connive with the minister's decision. One of the worst things about the 2018-19 decision was that grant applicants were led to believe that their grants had been knocked off on the basis of merit, that they had failed through the competitive selection process. The Australian Research Council did not at the time come clear with those unsuccessful grant applicants and say, 'Look, your peers put you top of the pile, but the minister knocked you off.' At least this time it was very clear what had happened when the minister stepped in.

The knocking off of ARC grants is akin to the Minister for Sport funding a sporting competition with prizes at the end and in which the rules are very clearly set out, then coming along as people are walking up to the medal ceremony and saying: 'No, I don't like this silver-medallist. I'm knocking off the silver-medallist and I'm allowing the bronze medallist to step up.' That is what it is like to override it. That is why we have seen an open letter signed by 139 current and former members of the Australian Research Council's College of Experts, protesting against the decision, pointing out that the six projects that were knocked off satisfied 'a rigorous multistage selection process' and that the ministerial decision to override the recommendations for funding 'undermines this process'. We've already seen at least two members of the College of Experts resign in protest. As the statement notes, the government has failed to uphold standards in line with the Haldane principle which holds that, while governments need to establish funding guidelines, decisions on individual research proposals are best made through independent peer review and government ministers should not decide which individual projects should be funded.

Australia is, as far as we know, unique among advanced countries in allowing the minister to knock off research grants. This doesn't happen in other countries, and that's because other countries don't see this as being like handing out money to local sporting clubs. They see this as having a rigour and an independence that means that ministers should not step in and override the process. The Morrison government claims it wants to protect academic freedoms. In fact, it commissioned a 2019 review of freedom of expression and intellectual inquiry into higher education. Minister Roberts's decision to veto ARC grants is a clear breach of a core principle of academic freedom. The veto of those grants is extraordinary. What did they knock off? They knocked off research projects exploring modern-day China. They knocked off a project on Shakespeare, one of whose key investigators was head of the peak Australian Shakespeare research society. So those who say that they're interested in the classics are knocking off grants for researching Shakespeare. Those opposite who talk about the importance of understanding China are knocking off grants for research into China.

At a time in which we have massive discontent with democracy among young Australians, we have the minister knocking off a grant for research into the School Strike 4 Climate. Whether you agree or disagree with the School Strike 4 Climate—and I was one of those who joined those marches—surely it is worth understanding the discontent of young people, understanding the frustration that they face about this government's complete failure of leadership on the issue of climate change. Tony Abbott may be gone from this place, but this government still has Tony Abbott's climate targets, still has the climate targets of the man who called climate change 'absolute crap'. We had a grant for research to explore the School Strike 4 Climate that would have shed light on young people's attitudes and potentially had proposals for greater community engagement in the climate debate and strengthening our democracy. If there's anything that all of us in this place should be united behind it's strengthening our democracy. When there are young people up in the gallery, members on all sides wave to them. We're pleased to see school groups in the chamber, and I can't wait for them to come back as the restrictions lift. Yet when it comes to understanding the views of young people about climate change, the Morrison government wants to stick its head in the sand.

We've had a range of senior figures within the academic establishment speaking out. Barney Glover, the Vice-Chancellor of Western Sydney University, said that it was facile to suggest that any of the vetoed grants weren't in the national interest. Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, said that it was inappropriate to intervene to remove grants 'unless the grant rules were not followed'. There's no suggestion in this case that there was a failure by the applicants to follow the grant rules, so the government is again simply knocking off grants in its own political interests.

One of the grants was to do with religion, and we were in here until after five o'clock this morning debating the issue of freedom of religion. You'd think the government would want to better understand issues surrounding religion. But, no, it's knocked off a grant for research into religion and done so at a time when these issues are of significant importance. We've had Christine Parolin, the executive director of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, saying:

Having researchers second guess whether their work will be rejected by the minister of the day after passing a rigorous assessment process of their peers, is no way to support a research system in a liberal democracy.

The anonymous ARC Tracker account said:

It undermines, insults and wastes the precious time and thorough considerations of 200-strong College of Experts assembled by an independent ARC.

Professor Barney Glover, in talking about climate activism, said:

Surely we want our best social and political scientists to explore the phenomenon. And what could the Minister possibly find objectionable in a liberal democracy supporting freedom of speech and extolling the virtues of academic freedom.

We've seen from this government a decision which has been described by the former Labor frontbencher Senator Carr as 'McCarthyism', pointing out that it subverts research that was recommended by the Australian Research Council. There are some $800 million of grants that are allocated through the Australian Research Council, and the meddling is utterly outrageous. Labor has said very clearly that, were an Albanese Labor government to be elected, our education minister would never exercise that veto. It never happened when Senator Carr was the minister for education and it wouldn't happen under minister Plibersek. The member for Sydney, were she to become education minister in Australia—and that would be a great day, indeed—would never veto an Australian Research Council grant.

The member for Sydney, Tanya Plibersek, recognises that the Australian Research Council is an independent Commonwealth body. She recognises that political interference undermines the support of the academic community for the Australia Research Council process. And she recognises that the attacks on the independence of the Australian Research Council are just part of the government's attacks on universities. We've seen cuts to university funding and we've seen jobs lost. Universities, such as Curtin University and the Australian National University, have literally been decimated, losing more than one in 10 of their staff.

During the pandemic, the government changed the rules three times to prevent public universities getting JobKeeper assistance. That's one of the reasons why so many of them lost jobs. But, at the same time, casinos got JobKeeper, and $20 billion of JobKeeper went to firms with rising revenue. Private universities, such as Bond University and New York University's Sydney campus, got JobKeeper. But public universities were left out, and the Commonwealth assistance that was extended to universities was far less than the hit to their revenue from the government closing the borders and shutting off access to overseas students.

International education is our fourth-biggest export industry, and yet it's being undermined by this government. Their Orwellian-named 'Job Ready' graduate program does nothing to improve the opportunities for young people. It drives up the cost of an arts degree so that it's now comparable to the cost that US students pay to study at a typical university in the United States. An Australian student can pay $58,000. And we know, because debts are paid through the HECS system, that students simply don't change their course choices when fees go up or down for particular courses. Instead, what happens is that this merely adds to the debt burden of young Australians.

The government's attacks on universities and attacks on research are nothing short of outrageous and should be condemned by this House.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being approximately 1:30 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.