Opinion-11 January 2001

Dr Bryan Gaensler
[1999 Young Australian of the Year]

(This speech should not be distributed or reproduced without explicit permission from Bryan Gaensler, bmg@space.mit.edu)

When I meet someone and tell them that I'm a scientist, I usually get the same series of reactions. The first comment is something like, "How exotic! I didn't know we had any scientists in Australia." And the question that quickly follows is usually, "So this science stuff, what do we actually get from it?"... 

...the government no longer funds [university] salary increases negotiated through enterprise bargaining, resulting in an effective reduction of a whopping 20% into the money going into the university system. It's almost as if the Government has announced a "Going Out of Business" sale, and the results have left our higher institutions in crisis --- typical across the country are forced redundancies, major staff reductions across the board, increased class sizes, and the merging and, even closing, of various research departments.  [Full Text]