Minister Says Second Rate Research Isn't Good Enough. (May 17, 2008)

The Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, in a speech inaugurating the launch of a collaborative project between multi-billion-dollar pharma, Pfizer and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre told his audience that without creating intellectual capital Australia: "will be reduced to dependency and imitation".

He then went on to issue what appears to be a sweeping challenge to the nation's researchers: "Australia is a . . . small country with finite resources. We can't afford wasteful duplication and, to be perfectly frank, we can't afford to support second-rate work."

What the minister deems to be "second-rate work" wasn't specified, but perhaps the cuts aimed at CSIRO in the 2008-09 Budget is one indication.

The Canberra Times Rosslyn Beeby summed up the cuff to the nation's premier research organisation, already punchy from the pummelling it was subject to from the reign of John Howard's Coalition and CEO Geoff Garrett: "Following the budget, with its $63million cut to CSIRO ($39.8million announced in the budget and $23.6million from the Rudd razor gang's increased efficiency dividend), there has been, to quote New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, 'a silence you could knit a sweater in' from science bodies that usually fire off budget commentary within hours."

Of course as the late US president Richard Nixon observed: "if you've got 'em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow."