David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It was a huge privilege to take part in this year's Science Meets Parliament event, and I'd like to give a big thank you to the team at Science and Technology Australia for organising what I understand were meetings for some 250 delegates with 79 parliamentarians through the course of the week. The message coming out of it was pretty simple: Australia's scientists are among the world's best, and we need to value and respect their work. We need to use it to inform our decisions on evidence based policymaking.

Part of valuing our scientists is funding their work. We need to see a serious investment from the government in research and development. The most recent SRI budget tables, published in April last year, indicate that the government will invest $12.1 billion in R&D in 2022-23. We will spend $11.1 billion subsidising fossil fuels. At just 0.49 per cent, we are at the lowest point for Australian government R&D expenditure as a percentage of R&D on record—since records began. The government has a commitment to get that up to three per cent. The question is: How? How are they going to do that?

This morning I met with Professor Anya Reading, Australia's first female professor of geophysics, who now works on Antarctica. Her ask was both simple and symptomatic across the sector: 'Please fund us for more than just ad hoc expeditions. Fund us for an ongoing program of data collection. Give us certainty.' Data from Antarctica will be crucial to understanding the impact of potentially catastrophic events like melting Antarctic sea ice. The government needs to back up their promise with action come the federal budget in May.