Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a routine bill to apply indexation to existing appropriations and adds the last year of the forward budget estimates. The proposed amendments only impact on administered special appropriations; they do not alter the substance of the act or indeed increase departmental funds. This bill will alter three existing financial year funding figures by adding indexation at approximately 3.4 per cent and will extend the forward estimate period to include the financial year starting on 1 July 2014. The additional financial year will be funded at $795.392 million, a reduction of four per cent from the previous financial year, and the cost of indexation is $88.949 million over three years. By adding an extra outyear to the forward estimates and updating indexation, the bill will increase spending by approximately $885.335 million over four financial years.

Australia has a long and indeed proud history in research, science and innovation. Our national quest to add to the sum-total of human knowledge and to improve lives through scientific and technological progress belies the image of many around the world of Australia as a land of somewhat languid beachgoers and jackaroos, satisfied with the status quo of 'she'll be right' rather than seeking to improve on it.

In many ways, however, our climate and geography have contributed to a decidedly practical bent in our drive for innovation. It will not surprise anyone to know that, in addition to many agricultural and transport related inventions, Australians have been pioneers of refrigeration and that miracle hangover cure the Aspro tablet.

But in the past, it has been this very same geography in the form of relative isolation from the rest of the developed world—the tyranny of distance—which has also hindered the work of our very best minds. Contrary to the stereotype of the lone and mad genius labouring in a backyard laboratory, research, science and innovation thrive on networks and collaboration, the constant interplay and interaction between numerous individuals putting pieces of the puzzle together. No wonder that for a large part of our history we had to send our best and brightest overseas, most often to Britain, in order for them to flourish and indeed to fully reach their potential.

Sir Howard Florey developed penicillin at Oxford, and Sir Mark Oliphant worked at the University of Birmingham to develop radar and then in the United States to build the atomic bomb. Then the communication revolution and cheaper air travel progressively abolished the tyranny of distance and Australians could far more readily participate in the global scientific and global research community. Our scientists and researchers of course still travel the world and teach and often work overseas, but they no longer need to do so in order to feel that that is the only way they could put their talents to best use. Most of the major recent innovations and inventions—many of them in the medical field where our country has always seemed to punch well above its weight—have been made in Australia, from the bionic ear, microsurgery, to new stomach ulcer treatments, and recently of course cervical cancer vaccines. For a relatively small population occupying a large continent at the end of the world, we have much to be proud of and much to build upon for our future.

Research of course is one of the twin pillars of universities—the other one being teaching. The benefits of teaching are not so difficult to quantify. Some of them of course are intangible, that is true. After all, you cannot put a price on the new habits of mind, the rounding influence of liberal education or the preservation of the shared values and culture that connect us with the past and unite us here in the present. But in practical terms we know very well that university graduates have substantially higher lifelong earnings than those with secondary education only and no-one questions the value of a better educated workforce for our economy.

But the value of research is just as important as the value of teaching and education, even though it is often much harder to measure. It is clear that new medical treatment provides benefits to mankind and it is equally clear that a major new innovation, like the wireless internet developed right here by the CSIRO, has huge economic and social impact. Most research, however does not result in a few startling breakthroughs that make history, but in thousands of small incremental improvements. Various studies suggest that the average return for every taxpayer dollar spent on research gets a return of about 20 per cent, and some argue even more, making research investment the best return on government spending.

The Australian Research Council, or the ARC, has been the central core of government architecture in the area of research funding. The ARC provides advice to government on research matters and manages the National Competitive Grants Program, the major source of public funding to support research work and research training at our universities. The National Competitive Grants Program comprises two major funding streams—linkage and discovery. The ARC's linkage funding aims to promote national and international research partnerships between researchers and business, industry, community organisations and other publicly funded research agencies. It does so by requiring the winners of its grants to have secured matching funding from these other sources. In turn, this process of collaboration encourages the transfer of skills, knowledge and ideas, which can assist—among other things—in commercialising research. The ARC's other flagship, the discovery schemes, aim to build a strong capability in fundamental research—sometimes called discovery, basic or blue sky research; in other words, the very front line of research.

Parliamentarians are busy people with plenty of calls on their time and attention. Both the House and the Senate pass hundreds of bills every year, many of them highly technical and, indeed, often arcane. Unless one is a minister or a shadow minister responsible for a particular area of public policy, or one has a particular interest, most of us will never acquire an in-depth knowledge and appreciation of all the bills we are called to vote upon on every sitting day. But behind every bill, no matter how unlikely, there is a story, and often a fascinating story.

This bill, the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2011, might be a short, administrative, non-controversial piece of legislation, but it is part of a much larger story. It is a story of ingenuity and imagination, of long hard work as well as instant flashes of inspiration. Who knows—maybe one of the recipients of an ARC grant next year will discover the secret of the universe or will build the proverbial better mousetrap. Maybe he or she will stand on the shoulders of the great Aspro giants and develop the next generation of hangover cures. Whatever happens, Australia and the rest of the world will be eternally grateful.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a pleasure to follow such an uplifting, thoughtful and inspirational speech by my colleague Senator Mason on the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill. I can but agree with him on the great work that Australia's scientists do. Most of them do struggle from hand to mouth at times, but thanks to the research grants programs of successive governments we are able to contribute in some way to some of the fabulous things Australia's scientists have done.

I add a more sober note perhaps to the debate. That concerns one element of research and research grants that I am concerned about. Unlike my colleague who has just spoken, I am not greatly imbued with knowledge about university life and how universities actually work, but I have always understood them to be places of open research and open understanding where ideas and the contest of ideas are encouraged. However, I have to say with some regret that it has been reported to me that there is not quite openness and fairness in the devolution of all research grants. Before I go into this, I make the point that I am not naming names, I am not mentioning particular universities, and it is sad that in Australia this should be the case.

I am told by some people in universities and some scientists that, if they do not have an approach to a particular area of science that is approved by the current government, there is absolutely no chance they will get a grant for their research work. I have been told of instances around Australia where learned professors and lecturers have said to their students, 'This is as I understand the thing, this is what I want to teach you, but if you are going to become a scientist please do not adopt this line because you will never get research funding, and without research funding you will not be able to approach your chosen field of science in a particular area.'

I make no aspersions against the individuals who currently constitute the Australian Research Council. But I point out that, back on 12 May 2009, I sought on notice from the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research details over the previous five years of what Australian Research Council grants had gone to scientists and researchers associated with work related to climate change. I asked for details of the grants, the recipients, what amount was involved and short titles of the research. I got very many pages back in answer to my inquiry. Someone on my staff added up that over $200 million in research funds went to people researching climate change. It is said to me by people within the research, scientific and university areas that none of those grants have gone to anyone who had a view contrary to that of the current government. The people who have told me that are people who I believe, and they are, to me, very highly qualified, highly learned, highly experienced, very intelligent people in the science and industry area. They are the sorts of scientists that Senator Wong, as climate change minister and now as representing the climate change minister since she was sacked from that job, dismisses in comments like, 'Oh, they're flat-earthers.' The people she refers to as flat-earthers are qualified, world-recognised scientists in their own field but, unless they agree with Senator Wong's or Professor Flannery's view on life, then these people—qualified though they are, and recognised right around the world—are simply dismissed as not being good scientists.

They cannot get their work peer reviewed. When you ask why that is, Senator Wong says, 'They can't get it peer reviewed because they're no good at all; they're not real scientists.' Well, I am sorry—these are scientists who are very well qualified and learned but who have a different view from Senator Wong and the Gillard government—well, that is, they have a different view now. You will remember just before the last election of course that Ms Gillard promised that there would be no carbon tax under a government she led, therefore accepting that it was not the greatest moral challenge of our time that her predecessor, Mr Rudd, had said climate change was.

But I divert from the point I am making, and that is that, to be good science and good research, funding must go to all those who want to conduct research into a particular phase of learning, and if those people happen to have a different view from those who, at the current time, have the ear of the government, that should not mean they do not get research funding. It should not mean that research funding only goes to those who share the same view as the government. I think Senator Mason referred to scientists in days gone by who, when they were developing their theories, were shunned as being just not with it, not on the same page; their theories were said to be ridiculous or to be contrary to the rules as they were known then.

As I always say in relation to climate change, I do not know whether man is causing climate change. I always acknowledge that the climate is changing—it has been for millions of years. I continue to mention that once upon a time this planet was under ice; it is no longer under ice. Once upon a time there were rainforests in the centre of Australia and dinosaurs roamed throughout there, but the climate changed over millions of years and we do not have rainforests in the centre of Australian now. We do have islands where once there were none and we have no islands where there were islands once upon a time. So of course the climate is changing. Everybody knows that. But is it man's emissions that are causing the climate to change?

There have been so many outrageous allegations about this. You will remember we were being told a few years ago that the south of the continent was getting drier and drier, and yet here we are sitting in Canberra this week with the most unseasonal wet weather, the most rain, that I think this city has seen for a long time; it is akin to the sort of monsoonal rain we get up in North Queensland, where I come from, at this time of year. But a few years ago Senator Wong and her cohorts were telling us that the south of the continent was getting drier and drier. Well, tell that to the people who were flooded in Victoria last year. Tell it to the people in Cooma and Goulburn today who are, I understand, being sandbagged because of unseasonal floodwaters. So who knows? But we were being told these things. We were being told by Professor Flannery, you might recall, that the tides were increasing and that people ought to be careful where they built their houses. It did not stop Professor Flannery, of course, from buying a property on the banks of the Hawkesbury River, building his house there and then having fights with his neighbours over allegations of talk on the Ray Hadley radio show—but I will not go through that; we canvassed that a little at the estimates hearings just gone.

But this is why I say I do not know. I personally do not know. I am not a scientist. I am not very clever. And I do not know whether emissions are causing climate change. What I do know is that there are a number of scientists who say that it is. That is their view and they will give you their papers; they give them to me, though they do not mean much to me. But I do know that there are also a number of other, equally reputable and learned scientists who have a different view.

I only need to pause briefly to mention that, according to Senator Wong and others, including Professor Flannery, our coral reefs in Australia were doomed because the water was getting warmer and the Great Barrier Reef would be killed because of climate change. Well, we had some very good research from the Australian Institute of Marine Science on coral reefs in Western Australia. I did try to read it through and, as I understood it, it said that they had actually worked out that the warmer waters were increasing calcification which, when I looked it up in the dictionary to find out what it meant, actually meant that the coral was expanding. I see Senator di Natale shaking his head. I understand he has some scientific background; perhaps he can correct me. But the paper is there and it quite clearly shows that, in those southern coral reefs of Western Australia, warming waters actually extended the coral—made it better; made it increase. That paper has recently come out. It is there for everyone to see. I raised that at estimates as well. So I cannot say for sure, but what I am saying is that, just because some scientists have a different view from what is claimed to be the view of the majority of other scientists in that field, that does not mean that those scientists should not be given research funds and supported to pursue their theories. I mentioned that some scientists could not get some of their papers peer reviewed. Again, I am not an insider in how the research area works, but one would think that the scientific journals would publish these papers and allow other people to read the work of what I believe to be quite distinguished scientists and then form a view. But a lot of the scientific magazines will not even publish their work. If it is bad as Senator Wong and others would tell us, why wouldn't they publish the work and those scientists can open themselves up to criticism from the rest of the scientific world? But they cannot even get them published.

I do not have the names in front of me now, but on two occasions at estimates—it is all on the record—I have given lists of names to Senator Wong of distinguished scientists who have a different view and Senator Wong has dismissed those very learned and eminent scientists with the comment, 'We don't deal with flat-earthers.' This is a politician accusing some of the world's leading scientific brains of being flat-earthers. That shows the sort of respect the Gillard government has for anyone who happens to disagree with its view on life. I think this is appalling.

I indicate to Senator Conroy that, when the bill is read a second time and the Senate has the option to go into the committee stage, I am going to ask for this chamber to go into committee because I want to ask Senator Conroy a couple of questions about research grants.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've been personally doing them—you're right.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I beg your pardon?

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I've been personally deciding them. You're right; you've got me.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am giving you some warning, Senator Conroy. You have advisers who might be able to help you. You do not know much about the NBN, but you are in charge of that, so I assume you have some advisers that might assist you there and that you have advisers on this bill that might be able to assist you. I just want to ask a couple of questions—I will not keep the Senate long—about research grants. The figures that I have are for the five years ending 2009 and I would be interested in what they have been since that time. I would also be interested in knowing how much research money has gone to scientists who have a different view on the cause of the changing climate of the world.

So, not wanting to keep the chamber too long with this contribution, I again endorse my colleagues' words about how uplifting and how great our Australian scientists are and how Australia, to use the vernacular, punches well above its weight when it comes to scientific research and the things that clever Australians—clever us—have invented, contributed to and helped with over many years. I will not individualise the fields of work that our scientists have contributed to because it is too wide, but we have been very good and the research grants program is essential so they can be provided those funds. So we support this amendment bill. But I do mention again, in relation to grants for climate change research, that they should be evenly spread for those who make application—not even evenly spread, but there should be some money for those who have a different view and want to research it. The only way, as any scientist will know, that you can really research things is with a bit of financial support to help with your research and with your living expenses while you are doing that research.

I am sure a lot of this $200 million odd that has gone to scientists who share the government's view on climate change and the causes thereof has been very good research. I am sure it has. But I would like someone to go through and identify in the information I have and the information I will be seeking just how many of those grants have gone to people who do not believe that human emissions are the cause of the changing climate that we are all experiencing in this world. It was scientists who told us it was going to get drier in the south. Some people were talking about one-metre increases in the sea level in the foreseeable future and there were outrageous claims promoted by Senator Brown in the Greens political party.

Science and research needs to be given without fear or favour. People need to be encouraged to challenge existing contem­porary views that are held by a lot of people. The only way we improve in this world—the only way we improve in our lives and the things we can do—is by challenging existing theories, proposals and presentations and to encourage argument to understand just what happens. By denying some scientists support to do that, I do not think we do ourselves a favour and we certainly do not do our learning and research areas any favours.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to address the Australian Research Council Amendment Bill 2011. I support the comments made by colleagues about the importance of research in the Australian community, but there are a couple of areas that I particularly want to touch on around the implementation and the outcomes of funding on research and development. The Australian Research Council is a statutory authority within the Australian government's Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education portfolio. I make that point because it does reside within one specific portfolio. One of the challenges that governments of all political make-ups and all levels have is to make sure that money spent and initiatives supported within one portfolio coordinate with outcomes and decisions made with other portfolios. That is the only way that implementation will be effective and that inputs, which we as legislators in this place approve, will have the maximum benefit in the community. I will touch on a couple of areas to highlight that.

Firstly, we should confirm the need for investment in R&D. The OECD has done quite a bit of research specifically on Australia that indicates there is a strong link between research and development and productivity. It found that a one per cent increase in business R&D led to a long-run increase in productivity of 0.11 per cent. The comparable result is 0.28 per cent for public research. In net terms there is actually a very strong and significant link to research. It is good to see that over the years—and I give credit—both sides of government have increased funding on R&D. The gross resources devoted to research and experimental development—this comes from both public and private investigation—have increased from around $10 billion in the late nineties. They rose fairly steadily up to about $24 billion by 2004-05 and then there was a significant change in that gradient up to just under $28 billion by 2008-09, which is good because the need is there. But the question is: are we actually getting the maximum result for that investment in research?

The National Farmers Federation today released their Farm Facts for 2012, which indicates that the farming sector continues to be an important contributor to our economy and to our way of life. They produce some 93 per cent of Australia's domestic food supply. In 2010-11 the farm exports earned Australia $32.5 billion which is up $400 million in two years. Significantly, when you look at food production, the United Nations has identified that there is a real challenge in that we need increasing productivity to meet the growing global food demand. The UN estimates that production will need to increase by some 70 per cent by 2050 in order to meet the world population need. That is why we need continued investment, but investment that is effective. That 'effective' means we need a whole-of-government approach.

One of the simple things that we need to do is, firstly, make sure that funding continues in critical areas. I notice, in looking at agriculture at the Cooperative Research Centres, that there was $33 million removed from the budget last year. That affects certain things. For example, there was a lot of concern last year around the spread of rabbits. The Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre, which were doing work on a replacement for calicivirus, were quite concerned about the fact that they were not going to be re-funded. In the end they were, but what are the consequences of not funding what appears to be a fairly small area? Some $400 million a year is the kind of productivity loss that we see in agriculture if something like rabbits are not controlled. The CSIRO has some quite accurate figures about the value to Australian agricultural produce of investing in things like viruses such as the calicivirus to control rabbits. Not only agricultural production but also the environment would be under considerable threat, and a number of plant species would be under threat if it were not addressed. So, maintaining the budget is the first step.

The second part around the whole-of-government approach that I want to highlight is that it cannot stay within that one portfolio. If we are to make those taxpayer dollars count, if we are to encourage business to make the business investments in R&D, then we need a whole-of-government approach. Looking at business R&D investment in 2008, Australia ranked 14th in the world in the amount of business investment, which was significantly above some our regional neighbours such as China. However, when we look at where business is choosing to set up their manufacturing plants, it is instructive to look at the pharmaceutical industry. In speaking yesterday to people from the pharmaceutical industry, they indicated that they would be very willing to establish manufacturing plants in Australia, but we are significantly disadvantaged compared to regional neighbours who are providing better regulatory environments, particularly around tax provisions. That means that it is far more cost effective for the companies to invest elsewhere. If we are to actually capitalise and leverage off the combination of taxpayer and private R&D, we need to have complementary policies in other portfolio areas that will enable the commercialisation and, ideally, the production of the things that are developed by our scientists and researchers in Australia. Only by having that whole-of-government approach will we realise the value of research and development in this country.

Lastly, I want to look at the area of Defence. The Defence Science and Technology Organisation, in August last year, announced US$13.7 million in R&D funding for projects. Five projects were selected out of 119 submissions under round 15 of the Defence Capability and Technology Demonstrator Program. Interestingly, if you look back over the years since 1997 when that program was established, only 11 projects have transitioned into an acquisition project or into a project that has continued the value of that research—only 11 in more than a decade. The feedback we get from small business, who are working in the defence industry sector, is that the reluctance of the Australian government and the Defence Materiel Organisation to purchase Australian products, particularly where there are new or innovative ideas, is harming the long-term prospects for research and development in Australia. Rather than just paying out with one hand to encourage companies to invest in research and development, we need to have a coordinated approach such that we reward them by giving them a market for the products that flow from their research.

I support the bill, but I call on the government to have a whole-of-government approach.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 2 pm the debate is interrupted.