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senate vote 2018-11-13#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2019-01-18 14:29:16
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Title
Documents — Australian Research Council; Order for the Production of Documents- Documents - Australian Research Council - Order for the Production of Documents
Description
<p class="speaker">Anne Urquhart</p><p>At the request of Senator Carr, I move:</p><p class="italic">That the Senate—</p>- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2018-11-13.105.2) introduced by Labor Senator [Anne Urquhart](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/tasmania/anne_urquhart) (Tas), which means it succeeded.
- ### Motion text
- > *That the Senate—*
- > *(a) notes that:*
- >> *(i) in evidence to the supplementary Budget estimates hearing of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC), Professor Sue Thomas, revealed that the former Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, had vetoed the funding of eleven humanities and social sciences grants,*
- >> *(ii) the projects and scholars affected were not notified that their proposal had been deemed successful only to be denied funding by the former Minister; rather this intervention was deliberately and callously kept secret,*
- >> *(iii) some of scholars involved have had their careers, professional reputation and employment status materially affected by this political interference,*
- >> *(iv) there has been no comprehensive and detailed public explanation of the reason for the exercise of the ministerial veto, despite this being the practice of the past Labor Government, and*
- >> *(v) the number of projects in the humanities and social sciences being funded by the ARC has fallen by 35% for Discovery project grants, and 51% for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) between 2016 and 2018;*
- > *(b) condemns this political interference in the normal independent, rigorous and peer review process;*
- > *(c) acknowledges the universal condemnation of the Government's position from universities, the learned academies, the research community and ordinary Australians;*
- > *(d) urges all political parties, members and senators to commit to the Haldane principle that politicians should not make decisions on funding of individual research projects;*
- > *(e) calls on the Federal Government to provide a full and public explanation of why the then Minister for Education and Training arbitrarily rejected these eleven grants recommended by the ARC; and*
- > *(f) calls on the ARC to actively encourage the scholars whose grants were rejected to submit them again for the forthcoming grants rounds.*
<p class="italic">(a) notes that:</p><p class="italic">  (i) in evidence to the supplementary Budget estimates hearing of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC), Professor Sue Thomas, revealed that the former Minister for Education and Training, Senator Birmingham, had vetoed the funding of eleven humanities and social sciences grants,</p><p class="italic">  (ii) the projects and scholars affected were not notified that their proposal had been deemed successful only to be denied funding by the former Minister; rather this intervention was deliberately and callously kept secret,</p><p class="italic">  (iii) some of scholars involved have had their careers, professional reputation and employment status materially affected by this political interference,</p><p class="italic">  (iv) there has been no comprehensive and detailed public explanation of the reason for the exercise of the ministerial veto, despite this being the practice of the past Labor Government, and</p><p class="italic">  (v) the number of projects in the humanities and social sciences being funded by the ARC has fallen by 35% for Discovery project grants, and 51% for Discovery Early Career Researcher Awards (DECRA) between 2016 and 2018;</p><p class="italic">(b) condemns this political interference in the normal independent, rigorous and peer review process;</p><p class="italic">(c) acknowledges the universal condemnation of the Government's position from universities, the learned academies, the research community and ordinary Australians;</p><p class="italic">(d) urges all political parties, members and senators to commit to the Haldane principle that politicians should not make decisions on funding of individual research projects;</p><p class="italic">(e) calls on the Federal Government to provide a full and public explanation of why the then Minister for Education and Training arbitrarily rejected these eleven grants recommended by the ARC; and</p><p class="italic">(f) calls on the ARC to actively encourage the scholars whose grants were rejected to submit them again for the forthcoming grants rounds.</p> <p class="speaker">Anne Ruston</p><p>I seek leave to make a short statement.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Leave is granted for one minute.</p> <p class="speaker">Anne Ruston</p><p>The government is committed to providing Australian research with funding that will be both valuable for taxpayers and transparent for researchers. Australians should expect nothing less when the government expends their money. To strengthen the process—</p> <p class="speaker">Deborah O'Neill</p><p>Why are you cutting it, then?</p> <p class="speaker">Anne Ruston</p><p>the government will introduce a new national interest test and the Australian Research Council application—</p><p class="italic">Senator O'Neill interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Senator O'Neill! Leave is granted for certain people to make one-minute statements. This is done in order to facilitate the operation of the chamber. I urge senators to behave accordingly.</p> <p class="speaker">Anne Ruston</p><p>The ARC supports the strengthening of the benefits test to stand alone in the national interest test.</p> <p class="speaker">Mehreen Faruqi</p><p>I seek leave to make a short statement.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Leave is granted for one minute.</p> <p class="speaker">Mehreen Faruqi</p><p>The Greens support this motion. There should be no political interference in research grants, full stop. The Liberals need to back off on the so-called national interest test, which is just a smoke-screen for inserting political priorities into the independent research approval process. What's truly in the national interest is for academics to continue the centuries-old tried and tested process of peer review. I do encourage Labor to go one step further and support my bill to remove all ministerial veto from research grants, to listen to universities and the academic community and to send a clear signal to academics and experts that they can be trusted to make research decisions, no matter who the government is.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>The question is that general business notice of motion No. 1173 be agreed to.</p>
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