Australia’s national science crisis continues with around 350 jobs under threat at the CSIRO, more redundancies from the federal Department of Environment and the loss of at least 30 jobs in tropical research at James Cook university in northern Queensland.
No, despite prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s repetitive attempts at reassurance, there has never been a less exciting and more anxious time to be a scientist in Australia. The cuts and closures just keep on coming……
The CSIRO cuts will affect around 110 climate science jobs, a similar number in its Land & Water division (as if drought-prone Australia can afford to lose water specialists) and other areas such as food science, health and nutrition, and digital innovation.
And, as February’s estimates confirmed, 64 redundancies are scheduled for the federal Department of Environment this financial year…….and there’s a question mark hanging over the future of the Atlas of Living Australia, which is meant to be a national database of biodiversity, because CSIRO funds it.
As one DOE bureaucrat rather tersely told estimates, ” We have no detail of what CSIRO is doing.”
So for all the federal policy blather about national research priorities, science agendas and science leadership, the future for Australia’s working scientists is looking pretty grim.
Our national science crisis is well into its second decade by now, and both major political parties have played a role in its shameful losses.
Yes, the 2014 budget cuts to science under the Abbott government were appalling. But under Labor, budget cuts to science funding led the CSIRO to shut down its Sydney food-processing test plant, cut jobs in food science research and close its grape and citrus research laboratories in northern Victoria. And that’s just a sample of the losses inflicted……..
As the most recent round of Senate estimates hearings revealed, Australia’s science policy and management appears to be plunging even further into chaos. Lack of communication looks like a biggie…….
Nick Gales, the director of the Australian Antarctic Division, and Bureau of Meteorology chief Rob Vertessy both told estimates they had received just one day’s notice of the proposed changes to climate science at CSIRO. And DOE bureaucrats didn’t know how the $24 million Earth Systems & Climate Change Research Hub would be affected by the CSIRO cuts.
Just to recap briefly CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall sent an email to staff in early February outlining changes to research priorities that will affect around 110 climate science jobs, chiefly in Tasmania and Melbourne.
These cuts will affect joint research projects with the BOM, as well as a 20 year AAD research strategy approved in October 2014 by federal environment minister Greg Hunt. The purpose of the strategy was to strengthen Australia’s research capacity in Antarctica, as well as its role in international research in the region.
In his evidence to estimates, Marshall said the proposed changes to climate research at CSIRO were about “trying to be smarter and more collaborative.”
The was much talk from Marshall and the other CSIRO executives fronting estimates about concepts such as “over-arching customer relevance” and “market attractiveness’’ defining investment strategies in various research divisions (or “business units” as they now seem to be called).
But there are sufficient funds, it seems, to send a delegation of 16 CSIRO staff to the US for an Australian Business Week promotional junket……
Naturally, that wretched cliche “journey” was trotted out by CSIRO executives to justify the changes. Were they referencing Chairman Mao (“the longest journey etc) or perhaps Bilbo Baggins , and the quest for the magic ring of invisibility…….or was it mediocrity?
According to one of the CSIRO managers fronting estimates, “not everyone will be able to make the cultural journey” outlined in Marshall’s email to staff.
The cultural journey……where do they get this stuff from…….
Anyway, as CSIRO staff know only too well, it’s a roundabout way of saying there’ll be redundancies.
So does it really make sense for the Turnbull government – and the Opposition – to be talking up pre-election science agendas that are supposed to prepare Australia for a new generation of science expertise and achievement when jobs in science are disappearing?
And where are the principled, tough-minded science leaders who will be bold enough to cut through all this nonsensical management jargon with the precision of a Jedi lightsaber……
Because until both major parties are given a hell of a scare over the long-term impacts of dismantling of Australian science, we’re going to keep losing expertise in ecology, water management, climate science, food science and the rest……yep,there has never been an angrier time to be an Australian who cares about holding down a meaningful job in research….
And by the way, those job losses at JCU include rainforest expert Steve Turton and internationally respected national disaster mitigation expert Jon Nott…….crazy!.
the hound 
Bravo Roz. Ameliorated some of my rage about the cuts and I’m not even a climate scientist with a job at risk!
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