Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Cabinet Secretary (Senator Sinodinos) and the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Singh and Ketter today relating to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and to the goods and services tax.

At the recent Paris Climate Change Conference, many global leaders came together to raise the importance of acting on climate change, of acting on greenhouse gas emissions. Commitments were made, targets were put in place and the like. Our own Prime Minister at that Paris Climate Change Conference made very clear statements about the importance of research and innovation as keys to dealing with global warming. In fact, I quoted him in the question I put to Senator Sinodinos. 'We do not doubt the implications of the science, or the scale of the challenge,' the Prime Minister said. You would think that at this time, with climate being such an important national research issue, you would not be seeing one of our key government institutions, the CSIRO, slashing 300 or more positions over the next two years.

That is why I put those questions today to Senator Sinodinos: to specifically ask him why, when the Prime Minister is making these statements that clearly show that he understands the implications of the science and the scale of the challenge when we are talking about climate change—as he said at the Paris conference—he is facilitating, in a sense, the cut to so many Australian climate scientists. I heard the answer by Senator Sinodinos and a similar answer by Senator Brandis. Senator Sinodinos gets 10 points for sticking to his brief, because I think his answer in each part certainly did that. It was a brief which kept reiterating that there would be not job losses but realigning. Well, he knows very well, as does Senator Brandis, that the CSIRO chief executive, Larry Marshall, himself said:

As our business unit leaders work through the process of realigning their teams for the new strategy it is inevitable that there will be job losses.

So there will be job losses, as the chief executive has told us, and those job losses are catastrophic, because those people have the expertise that we need in this country to ensure that we are doing our research in climate science and predicting future climate risk. Climate research is needed now more than ever. These cuts to environmental science are at a time when scientists need to be doing this work so much more than at any other time. It is just ridiculous that this is taking place. Obviously it is not just me saying this. There are so many experts in the field that have come out very strongly today. One of them, for example, is Professor Holmes from the Australian Academy of Science, who said very clearly:

Our climate and environmental scientists are some of the best in the world. We wouldn't stop supporting our elite Olympic athletes just as they're winning gold medals. Nor should we pull the rug out from under our elite scientists.

So here you have an incredible amount of expertise in climate research coming up and doing some incredible work that is needed, getting very good support from government in doing that and getting great outcomes in doing that. And, at that pinnacle moment that they are doing that important research work, they then are cut. The rug is pulled from under them, and government is facilitating that. This research and innovation that apparently highlights what it supposedly thinks is important is no longer going to be needed. That is simply not good enough. We are losing our role and our responsibility to the global community if we do this.

We need these climate scientists to continue to do their climate research. We need them more now than ever. In doing this we are gutting a great Australian institution—the CSIRO—that has done such incredible work in the past and needs to be there for our future and our children's future to continue to do such important and credible work, especially in the oceans and atmosphere division—one division on its own where 110 jobs will be cut. It is simply not good enough to lose these jobs and lose these scientists' minds. (Time expired)