Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Australian Research Council Amendment (Review Response) Bill 2023. The coalition has always recognised the importance of quality research. It's important for the future of our country to have research in important areas that will advance Australia's standing on a global stage and that we have proper and targeted investment. The coalition's track record on this is something that I'm very proud of. The coalition has always recognised the importance of high-quality research. We have always prioritised cutting-edge, innovative research which advances our nation, meets our national priorities and supports our economy and society. Our research sector is absolutely vital in ensuring that Australia remains globally competitive. However, every dollar spent on research by the taxpayers of this country should be in the national interest. It should always, not just occasionally, be in the national interest, because taxpayers work hard for their money and they expect that any money that is spent by the government should in the national interest.

Responsible government is a fundamental tenant of our parliamentary democracy. Government has a legitimate role to play in determining funding to reflect policy decisions while ultimately remaining accountable to the Australian taxpayers. This brings me to the problem we have with the bill. It undermines parliamentary democracy, it undermines the primacy of this place and the Australian people, indeed, in electing government, who then appoint ministers responsible for the decisions of government. This bill does away with ministerial responsibility when it comes to the expenditure of good, hard-earned resources and puts it in the hands of a board, rather than ministers being completely and ultimately responsible for funding decisions and for directing funding towards grants that researchers will use. The coalition is opposed to this bill because it removes ministerial discretion on grant funding decisions.

This bill—for anyone following at home—establishes the board, rather than the minister, as the accountable authority, with the ability to design and set grant guidelines and approve a wide range of grant funding decisions, including those for discovery projects, linkage projects and the fellowship programs, amounting to $895 million in expenditure in 2022-23. I am not talking about a small sum of money here but about nearly $1 billion in expenditure. It's not enough that this bill makes an exception for ministerial intervention for funding decisions made under defence, security and international relations concerns. The minister should always be accountable and responsible to this place and to the Australian people.

This bill effectively outsources the grant-funding decision to a board, whose members will be unaccountable to parliament. It's fair enough the minister would receive by way of a council or by way of a reference group or experts in the fields of the domains of research as to what projects, grants, should be approved and otherwise. That is perfectly acceptable. But to completely outsource the decision-making to a group of people who are not elected by the Australian people, who are not appointed by the Governor-General, is just unacceptable. They are a group of people who are not elected by the Australian people, who are not appointed by the Governor-General to serve as a minister of the Crown, so it's a bridge too far.

This bill outsources the grant funding decision to a board whose members will be unaccountable to parliament. This is inconsistent with the principle of responsible government and it is most certainly not in the national interest. Transferring the decision-making responsibility away from the minister to the board effectively suggests that it is the board, not the minister, nor the parliament, that is more informed about our national priorities than the elected government.

What is it that this bill is signalling here? Is it the case that the minister is not aware of what is in our national interest so they have to outsource it to another group? That's what you've been elected to do. When you put your hand up to be a member of parliament and to form a government, you are saying that you believe you are responsible, that you have the intellect, knowledge, awareness and capability to lead the nation, knowing what is going to be in the best interests of the nation. Outsourcing such significant expenditure of taxpayer money in this way is, to me, a significant diversion away from responsible government.

It's very, very disappointing and, I think, enlightening to see the priorities of this government. We're not talking about a small sum of money. If it was just a small grant program with maybe a couple of million dollars attached to it—that's still a large sum of money—then, sure, why tie up ministers and their staff and the department's resources with that low level of interaction? But we're talking about nearly a billion dollars in research. It ought to come across the minister's desk on every occasion. To outsource it in this way is irresponsible. It's another example of this government's utter failure to act in the best interests of Australian taxpayers.

The coalition's track record proves that we have always been a party of responsible government and sound decision-making. Those on the other side might like to kick up a fuss about this, but our track record speaks for itself. Of the thousands upon thousands of grant approvals that have crossed the desks of the coalition education ministers, only 32 have been rejected since 2005. Of the 600 Discovery Projects awarded in 2021-22, only six were rejected. That's a mere one per cent. In monetary terms, in terms of total expenditure, it's barely half a percentage point. The number also includes those projects rejected on national security grounds.

But let's not forget that those projects that were rejected were, frankly, rejected for good, sound reasons—for example, the absolute waste of taxpayers' dollars that would otherwise have been spent, if it weren't for the fact that it was rejected, on a research project that was going to look at 'beauty and ugliness as persuasive tools in changing China's gender norms' or on a research project that was going to look at the 'Soviet cinema in Hollywood before the blacklist, 1917-1950', which was originally entitled 'Red Hollywood: Communist style before the blacklist 1917-1950'. Thank goodness those projects were rejected. Thank goodness a minister who was accountable to this place, and accountable to the Australian people, rejected those projects. It couldn't be in the national interest to fund that sort of nonsense.

While these projects might, it is granted, have had some abstract academic research merit, they certainly didn't pass the pub test. How would these projects have advanced our national economic, social, environmental or cultural interests? I've got no doubt that, for good reason, the minister who was responsible at the time when those projects were put across their desk rejected them because they didn't meet that criterion. Each didn't advance our national economic, social, environmental or cultural interests. The proposals could not prove that they provided some kind of net benefit for the Australian community, so why should they, then, suck up funding from Australian taxpayers? They were rejected.

But we're now going to have a board that's not accountable to this place and is not ultimately accountable to the Australian people making decisions about the kinds of research programs that will be supported and funded and, in fact, writing the grant guidelines and setting the terms under which they're going to be awarded. That's completely irresponsible. Set up a board of experts across the various fields of research to provide advice to the minister, absolutely; there's no question about it. I don't in any way cast any shade over the merit of the people who are being selected here—I'm not sure who exactly they will be—but there should be accountability to this place, and the only one who is ultimately responsible is the minister. We're outsourcing this to an unaccountable group of people. It's unacceptable.

Responsible government is a simple concept. Responsible government equals responsible spending of taxpayer dollars; it's straightforward. This government is proving to have no idea—in fact, they're extremely uncomfortable with the idea. They would remove this layer of accountability from a government body that is responsible for allocating millions of dollars in taxpayers' expenditure.

Perhaps it's merely a diversionary tactic from Labor to distract from yet another broken promise of this government. The Prime Minister has broken his promise to the Australian people across a number of fronts since the election, and here is another example of where the government are not being true to what they promised the Australian people. For example, in 2022, before the election, there was a promise to lift expenditure research to three per cent of GDP. This seems to be heading the same way as all the other promises. The Prime Minister said that his word was his bond and that the government would stick to the stage 3 tax cuts. Obviously, the Prime Minister backed away on that. He misled the Australian people on that one. Here we go. They've promised to lift research expenditure to three per cent of GDP, and this promise is headed in the same direction. They are more than halfway through their term, and we've yet to see a single cent delivered on this promise that they would lift research—a promise, that was made to the Australian people.

We must have targeted research that is advancing the national interest. It is critical to our prosperity and the future of this country that we have good research that is advancing our national interests, across various aspects of the economy. It is critical that we have effective research. We're more than halfway through this term, and we're yet to see a single cent spent by this government on extra funding or to get anywhere near that three per cent of GDP. They're a long way off. Instead, more than $102 million was cut from the research sector. So there was a promise to increase it, and the last MYEFO update in December showed that $102 million was actually cut. Two significant research projects had their funding slashed. Australia's Economic Accelerator program had $46.2 million cut from it, while the Regional Research Collaboration Program had $56.3 million stripped from it. 'My word is my bond,' the Prime Minister said. I wouldn't take that to the bank. That's because, as we're seeing across so many areas of this government's and the Prime Minister's decision-making, they don't follow through with what they say that they will do. They're not true to their word. They mislead the Australian people. They're quite happy to do that continuously. Here we have another example of that.

I wouldn't take the Prime Minister's commitment or his word to the bank any time. That is not a bond that you want to rely on. It's just another show of blatant hypocrisy from the Albanese government. The government ought to reconsider its position on this bill because they are taking decision-making and accountability away from a minister that can come into either this place or the other place and be accountable to the parliament and give an account of every decision that they make. Instead, we're outsourcing it.