Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Greens amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 2395 together:

(1) Schedule 3, item 2, page 20 (lines 18 and 19), omit paragraph (d) of the definition of designated research program.

(2) Schedule 3, item 3, page 21 (lines 7 to 11), to be opposed.

These amendments remove the minister's power to specify designated research programs in regulations under which funding for individual research projects is decided solely by the minister and not by the ARC board. While these regulations would be disallowable, significant concerns have been raised by universities, university peak bodies and researchers that this risks the minister taking sole decision-making power over a very wide range of funding decisions on individual grants.

We have worked too hard to get politics out of research funding. Really we should not be providing the minister another opportunity to interfere again if they wish to do so in the future. Research funding should be decided through a rigorous peer review process and research expertise, not by the government of the day. The minister should not be able to write themselves back into power with some funding decisions over individual research grants—at least not without greater oversight. My amendment would have the effect that an act of parliament would be required for the minister to take the significant step of obtaining sole decision-making power over research funding.