Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Wong) and the Minister for Science (Senator Ayres) to questions without notice asked today by Senator Waters and me.

I think it's been very instructive watching the LNP this week. This is a tried and tested playbook that we've seen in here before, with the carbon price and the clean energy package, starting with the Abbott government all the way through to the Morrison government. They are relentlessly attacking climate action; talking about costs; cherrypicking science; highlighting the downsides; and ignoring, for example, the costs of not acting on climate change and the benefits in renewable energy. I want the Senate to be really aware that we're going to have to be on our toes in the next couple of years and be really conscious of the disinformation and the misinformation that's going to be fed to the Australian people not just from the LNP but from the denial machine around them—the Murdoch press, the think tanks, the PR firms, the consultancies and all the apparatus that gets funded by the fossil fuel industry and other vested interests around the world. It's coming our way, it's already here, and we need to be relentless with calling it out.

On that point, I want to call out the government, too. While they're highlighting the agreement they signed in COP, talking about the benefits to being, I suppose, key dignitaries at the next COP meeting, which is going to be in Turkiye, they're not telling us a couple of really important things. Let's deal with that. I also want to talk about the CSIRO, this nation's premier science agency. I can't believe that, in my time here, I've seen a Labor government sign off on more job cuts at our premier science agency than the previous antiscience, climate-denying Liberal Party governments. It really is quite astounding that especially the environmental research unit, which comprises climate change—all the fantastic scientists in Tasmania based down in Hobart, and we absolutely need all the jobs we can get in Tasmania—the water unit, the oceans unit and the nature unit are going to bear the brunt of these job cuts. The reason for that is simple. It's been a more-than-decade-long push to attack and undermine public-good science because these scientists aren't bringing in direct revenue. What we've seen is a de facto privatisation or monetisation of science at the CSIRO now for well over a decade.

I chaired a select committee into the job cuts in 2016. The then minister was Arthur Sinodinos under the Abbott government, trying to get rid of 350 oceans and atmosphere scientists. They said: 'We already know climate change is real. We don't need their information anymore. They're surplus to our country and our national efforts.' Well, how important have their research and their observations been in understanding our weather and the impacts of climate, not especially the costs of climate change? These scientists are absolutely critical for our understanding of the biggest challenges we face as a society and as a country.

And here we go again. Not 10 years later, these same scientists are now facing a job crunch because this government won't properly fund science. I was really surprised to see what I thought was a cavalier attitude from the minister in here today. He clearly doesn't get science and isn't around his brief and how important these jobs are, especially the environmental research unit. Public-good science should be funded by the taxpayer. The kind of work these scientists do is absolutely critical, not just to our understanding of things like climate change and protecting the environment in Australia. Their projects are globally collaborative. The government has plenty of opportunity now to turn this around and properly fund the CSIRO.

I'm very concerned about the job losses in Tasmania. We know that, out of the 350 job cuts, 150 are going to come from the environmental research unit, so that's in public-good science. Many of those scientists are in Tasmania. We've also got a lot of good scientists here in Canberra—in fact, all around the country. And here's my prediction: these 350 job cuts are just going to be the tip of the iceberg. I cannot help but think, looking at the numbers, that there are a lot more job cuts coming down the line. The unions—the CPSU and the CSIRO Staff Association—are absolutely shocked and disgusted that a Labor government would go down this road of cutting jobs to science. And there's a lot more water to come under this bridge yet. How did we get to this situation where funding shortfalls were not being met by the government over the last three or four years while senior executives were taking bonuses? (Time expired)

Question agreed to.