"Secret Meeting" of Industry Heads,  Researchers, and Federal Agency Heads Discussed Critical Shortages of Scientists and Mathematicians ... Yet Again! (August 11, 2004)

    An article in today's Sydney Morning Herald  by Aban Contractor reports that the meeting last week of some 50 participants was told that Queensland's Chief Scientist, Professor Peter Andrews had determined that "[a]nother 75,000 scientists would be needed by 2010 if Australia were to keep pace with other modern economies in its research capabilities."

The most critical areas were the enabling sciences and mathematics.

John White, professor of chemistry at the Australian National University's research school of chemistry, said attracting top students into physics, chemistry and maths was a major problem in many developed countries, but governments in Europe and the US were addressing the problem "vigorously".

The sessions also included a number of forums, which were "addressed by the Science Minister, Peter McGauran, and the Industry Minister, Ian Macfarlane, which were also organised by the Australian Industrial Research Group."

Following Contractor's article Labor's Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science & Research, Victorian Senator Kim Carr issued a media release in which he promises, "The Labor Party will abolish the $540 million per annum Research Training Scheme. The RTS is absurdly complex, administratively inefficient and wastes national talent. It has no effective quality assurance regime."

Senator Carr then refers to Professor Andrews' warning of a critical shortage of scientists, "Labor understands that Australia cannot afford to keep slipping behind
our competitors. Our international competitiveness must improve if we are to keep pace with the world's modern economies ... Labor's policy boosting industry and research will be released shortly."

If nothing else of substance was in the release Senator Carr has now committed Labor to axing the RTS, what else is planned? Wait and see.

Meanwhile the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, released a statement condemning Labor:

LABOR PLANS TO SLASH $500 MILLION FROM UNIVERSITY RESEARCH TRAINING

August 11, 2004 MIN 854/04

It has been revealed that a Latham Labor government has a secret plan to cut half a billion dollars a year out of university research training.
    According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Labor research spokesperson Kim Carr let slip at a secret meeting in Canberra last Thursday that Labor would abolish the Research Training Scheme.
    “In a private briefing on Labor’s research package to the meeting last week, the Opposition’s Industry and Research spokesman, Kim Carr, said Labor would abolish the $540 million a year Research Training Scheme... “

        Sydney Morning Herald, August 11, 2004

    This is the scheme introduced by the Government in 1999, which now supports more than 22,000 research students every year.
    Our Masters and PhD students are the future of research and innovation in Australia. The Research Training Scheme is specifically focused on improving the quality of student supervision and on helping to ensure that PhD and Masters Students are placed in research environments that provide the best training and the best infrastructure support.
    The Government is currently in the process of simplifying the management of the scheme, following extensive consultation with the university sector.
    Australian universities have never received more money for research support in our nation’s history. A Latham Labor government has a secret agenda to carve money out of the training of Australia’s next crop of researchers. This will be to the country’s long-term detriment.

A leading academic told TFW:

On the RTS scheme, both major political parties agree that it is not working. The government is also working on changing it.  The issue is that too many funds are clawed back from universities only to be returned via schemes which may be based on inaccurate or misinterpreted data.  One only has to see the figures released last week on how student / staff ratios have increased to see that the real problem is the squeeze put on university funding. 

While it would be ludicrous to expect an objective assessment of a Labor plan that has yet to be promulgated, just as Senator Carr neglects to mention that the RTS' viscous administrative complexities are currently being revamped, Dr. Nelson's scare mongering along with half truths such as "Australian universities have never received more money for research support in our nation's history," would beggar belief if it weren't so predicable.