A Senate inquiry into the job and program cuts at the CSIRO has today released its final report, exposing a deliberate shift away from public good science at the nation’s leading scientific research agency.
The inquiry revealed the CSIRO is suffering chronic underfunding masked as strategic reform, causing workforce destruction, loss of sovereign capability, and deliberate subversion of climate science.
The Greens are urging the Government to reverse all funding and staffing cuts, commit to increased and ongoing funding for “public good” science, and urgently establish an audit of CSIRO facilities to ensure its sustainability and viability.
Greens spokesperson for finance, public sector, workplace relations and employment and Senator for South Australia, Barbara Pocock:
“The major parties’ responses to the evidence provided through this inquiry are pathetic. This was an inquiry into “funding and resourcing for the CSIRO” yet neither made a single recommendation to actually increase funding or resourcing. It’s frankly shameful, and our dissenting report calls out their failure.
“Sustained underfunding of CSIRO is actively degrading Australia’s scientific workforce and eroding sovereign capability.
“CSIRO workers are facing relentless uncertainty about their jobs and research. These are highly skilled workers essential to Australia’s scientific future.
“Specialised scientific expertise takes years, often decades, to build. Once lost, it cannot be quickly or easily replaced. Losing their expertise would be a serious blow.
“Australia is not just underfunding science – it is dismantling the workforce and capability needed to confront the defining challenges of this century.
“This is about choices and the Labor Government is choosing to subsidise fossil fuel companies in the midst of a climate crisis over ensuring our nation’s resilience and sovereign capability through essential science.
“Gutting CSIRO is part of a broader process by successive Labor and Coalition Governments to weaken Australia’s public sector.
Greens spokesperson for Science, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson:
“Evidence to the inquiry makes clear that the challenges facing the CSIRO are the direct consequence of chronic underfunding by governments.
“These funding pressures are driving a shift toward short-term, applied work at the expense of deep, long-term climate science. This is not an incidental outcome, it is a direct consequence of policy and funding choices, and it carries significant national risk.
“The CSIRO has spent decades building the knowledge, infrastructure and skilled workforce needed to model Southern Hemisphere climate systems. This is not something that can simply be outsourced or picked up elsewhere. Rebuilding it would take years of sustained investment and the cuts now underway risk losing it altogether.
“The CSIRO needs additional funding and a new commitment from current and subsequent governments to real increases in the resources available to our premier public science organisation.
“With public good science funding under siege globally, it has never been more important for the Albanese government to invest in the CSIRO.”