While the rest of the world rushes to hire US scientists that Trump has cut, Australia follows in his footsteps

Australia’s national science agency is facing its deepest cuts in a decade with another 300 to 350 research jobs to be axed as other countries are “snapping up” top scientists leaving the United States.

The CSIRO has blamed the cuts on “evolving its research direction to focus its efforts on where it can deliver the greatest national impact”.

However, speaking on the Australia Institute’s Follow the Money podcast, Senior Economist Matt Grudnoff said that’s just the Government trying to rewrite the narrative.

“The Government has been trying to spin this … they have been really spinning hard.

“The reality is … they’re choosing to do less science at the very time when we should be doing more science, when we’re talking about productivity.”

Over the last 18 months, 800 jobs have already been slashed.

“The Government is either disregarding the biodiversity and climate crisis facing our nation, or it doesn’t care,” said the Greens’ Spokesperson for Science, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson.

“The short-sightedness of the Albanese Government’s job cuts to the CSIRO is negligent.”

Mr Grudnoff said the CSIRO’s public explanation doesn’t stack up.

“They’re doing crazy things,” he said.

“They’ve given us a number of areas that they’re going to refocus into. One of them, for example, is biosecurity, an area that is very important. But they’re also cutting jobs in the biosecurity research area.

“One of the other focus areas is climate change and being more resilient to the climate change that’s happening. But guess what? They’re cutting jobs in the environmental research area.”

“This wasn’t a strategic refocus. Rather it was taking a knife to an already bloodied organisation that had faced years of cuts.”

The senior economist said governments ‘aren’t actually lying’ when they talk about record amounts of money being funnelled into the science agency.

“They have been increasing the CSIRO’s funding by very small amounts but not enough to keep up with the cost of doing science,” he pointed out.

“But if you look at it as a percentage of the economy … we actually see that CSIRO funding is at record lows and it’s fallen quite considerably.”

He said it’s fallen to below levels when Tony Abbott came into power and did a “massive slash and burn”.

“Tony Abbott, not known for his love of funding science and funding universities and funding research in general, took a meat axe to it.

“Now the Albanese Labor Government is giving less funding as a proportion of the economy to the CSIRO than Tony Abbott did about 12 or 13 years ago.”

“That’s pretty damning, isn’t it?” said Ebony Bennett, the Australia Institute’s Deputy Director and podcast host.

Mr Grudnoff said it’s baffling given Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ repeated insistence that productivity is one of the Government’s top priorities.

“It’s madness,” he said.

“You would think that, at a time when they want to increase productivity, we would actually see more funding into research and development.

“So, it’s kind of doubly strange that this is the time the government is deciding to continue to slash funding.”

Former Science Minister Ed Husic has urged his own government to “pry open the jaws of Treasury” to boost funding for the CSIRO and see the cost as an investment in the future.

Mr Grudnoff pointed out among 35 developed countries (OECD) Australia ranks 27^th – eighth from the bottom.

Canberra would need to invest an additional $10 billion per year “just to be an average country”.

“We fund science and research and development really badly in this country from the Government and at the same time, the private sector is also not investing in research and development. So, you have this double whammy.

“If they don’t invest, then how are we going to make new discoveries and be able to produce more?”

In the US, the Trump administration has recently cut US$3 billion in direct research funding and axed more than 3,800 research grants

“Trump is Tony Abbott on steroids,” said Mr Grudnoff.

“It’s almost mind boggling that we’d be sacking people at the same time as other countries are racing to scoop up that global talent.

“This is exactly the time when we should be increasing funding because we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to take advantage of America dropping the ball, effectively.

“[It’s] such a missed opportunity for Australia.”