Research Staff at the Australian Museum Shrinks 29% Since June 2004; is expected to Suffer a Further 9% Decline by December 2007. (February 20, 2007)

The Australian Museum, Sydney

    The Australian Museum is a statutory body of, and is principally funded by, the NSW Government and operates within the Arts portfolio under the Department of Arts, Sport and Recreation. Additional funding is also provided by the Commonwealth government and as well as corporate and private donations.

The Museum's five principal goals for the 2005 - 2008 triennium are stated as:

1. to build a ‘time series’ of objects defining our natural and cultural world,

2. to unlock and share the knowledge in our natural and cultural collections,

3. to ignite enthusiasm for the skills that explorers and collectors use,

4. to find new connections across nature, culture and our lives,

5. to capture the imagination of young, old and all those in between.

It has been suggested to TFW that the decimating of the Museum's research staff is having a severely depressing effect on remaining research staff as well as shutting down key areas of research.

From June 2004 through June 2006: an anthropologist working on aboriginal rock art left to take up a position at Queensland's Griffith University, four taxonomists working respectively on gastropods, spiders, sea slugs and adult fishes all retired as has an ecologist studying marine invertebrates.

During the remainder of 2007 one taxonomist and one taxonomist/paleontologist will leave, as well as a terrestrial/fresh water ecologist and a geologist specialising in mineralogy.

 We've been told that there has been one replacement (a taxonomist) appointed and and while two further positions are to be advertised that remains to be done.

In summary by the end of 2007 it looks as though a total of 9 staff will have been lost with only one replacement appointee finalised.

As of the middle of 2004, the research staff totalled 21; it is likely to have been reduced to 13 by the end of 2007 a drop of 38%.

According to a source at the Australian Museum this will effectively eliminate the study of Aboriginal rock art, molluscs of any sort, spiders, centipedes, trilobites (or any other fossil taxa), adult fishes, marine invertebrate ecology, snakes, lizards, and any geological area by museum staff.
 

It is difficult to imagine that these losses won't have a deleterious effect on the 2008 goals the Museum had set for itself, and it begs the question at to whether or not the Australian Museum is to retain a viable research capacity or to become solely a repository and exhibitor specimens.