Unions Endorse Coalition’s Science Concerns
04-March-2011
Australia’s scientists continue to be ignored by the Gillard Government.
A key union has now backed the Coalition’s criticism of the Government’s approach to science, with the CSIRO Staff Association launching a withering attack today.
CSIRO Staff Association President Michael Borgas has been quoted as saying that there is:
• “confusion at all levels of government about the role of science and scientists” and a “creeping departmental bureaucracy that's stifling science”;
• “a reduction of the role of scientists in policy making”; and that
• “the direction and future of science (is) being dictated by departmental structure, not by ability or creativity”.
These are the latest in a long line of revelations about Labor’s mishandling of the science portfolio, including:
• last week’s bombshell that Chief Scientist Professor Penny Sackett has never even met Julia Gillard and only met Kevin Rudd once, despite being appointed to “provide advice to the Prime Minister”;
• the disgraceful treatment of former CSIRO scientist Clive Spash following his completion of a report critical of emissions trading;
• its attempts to vet all media releases written by science portfolio agencies (including the CSIRO, ANSTO, ARC and CRCs) so that they reflected Labor’s “key (political) messages”;
• its efforts to decimate funding for Australia’s international science collaboration through its abolition of the highly-regarded International Science Linkages program; and
• its secret agenda to scrap two vital science programs for primary and secondary school students, ‘Primary Connections’ and ‘Science By Doing’, in this year’s Budget.
This minority Labor Government is so consumed with self-preservation that science is sadly off its radar.