Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently visited the CSIRO Clayton campus in my electorate of Chisholm. I have been there many times over the past 16 years but with each visit, briefing and demonstration from the leading scientists and researchers there, I manage to always come away more impressed and more amazed at the level of innovation and advancement being achieved.

Sadly though, this visit was marred by the severe cuts in government funding that are being faced by the CSIRO Clayton researchers. This financial year, CSIRO has been hit with a $27 million cut and over the next five years $114 million will be stripped from CSIRO's research facilities nationwide. These figures are devastating. In the case of CSIRO, it translates into the loss of 500 jobs and the closure of eight research sites across the country. The cuts will also have major impacts on the collaborative research programs that CSIRO is actively pursuing with business interest. In my electorate CSIRO is working with local business networks such as the South East Melbourne Manufactures Alliance to bring the benefit of research directly into the commercial environment, placing research scientists directly into the businesses so that the research is done in real commercial spaces with results that can be applied quickly to improve production techniques, reduce costs and increase competitiveness. This is science helping to create jobs.

But the future of Australian science and the CSIRO work is at serious risk. Research by the Parliamentary Library shows our national investment in science and innovation has reached 25-year low of 0.56 per cent of GDP. This is just shocking. And the Prime Minister's unfair budget will cut that even more.

Investment in science and innovation is an investment in Australia's future. A 2012 study established that basic research investment leads to 30 times more economic growth, while investment in applied research leads to 10 times economic growth. Why then is this current government slashing support for science and research when investment in the field is clearly to the advantage of our nation's development? This is just nonsensical. Australia is ranked 18 out of 20 of OECD nations in science and research investment. We are losing the race and the government wants us to fall back to dead last. This is an environment where we are seeing manufacturing jobs being diminished every day. What are they going to be replaced with unless we are looking at science, innovation and research to create the jobs of the future?

An estimated $420 million is to be snatched from five key science and research agencies, while approximately $845 million will be taken from science specific industry support and innovation programs over the next five years. The Prime Minister loves to make the claim, 'If we don't make the necessary decisions now, it will only become tougher in the years ahead,' But cutting funding to science does not strengthen our position for the future. Without government funding to organisations such as CSIRO, we would not enjoy the technological breakthroughs such as polymer banknotes and Wi-Fi that we do on a daily basis—and the money and jobs these innovations have generated.

The cuts will also affect the coming generation. Without support for a broad range of innovative projects, jobs will become limited to a few areas of science. But these areas and research create jobs across the board and across the spectrum through all manufacturing and all areas of life. With limited funds, we will lose leading researchers to countries that do invest in research. As it stands, science workers face short-term contracts and yearly funding uncertainty, resulting in many trained scientists leaving the lab to retrain for other fields. Moreover, the science community faces high levels of employment uncertainty resulting in the loss of valuable talent to other countries who present better opportunities and security. In the words of Dr Tim Nielsen, the cuts to science and research funding are incalculable. As he aptly summarises:

Faced with a thankless 40-year battle for career survival, and little material reward or public recognition, it is not difficult to understand why so many young scientists are hanging up their labcoats and taking their extraordinary intellects and years of training elsewhere.

Science and research is an investment from which our nation has received valuable returns. CSIRO's Wi-Fi patent to date has earned $230 million dollars in revenue. Research is not an expense to be cut. It requires nurturing, which means long-term meaningful investment.

The Prime Minister must restore the funding to science and not sacrifice our future for a short-term saving today, a saving that will not help but actually be a cut that will reverberate down the generations. This is another short-sighted cut that should be reversed.