CSIRO chief Doug Hilton announced he’s sacking 350 scientists, but the $965K pa head of the science body now refuses to have his own ‘sacking science’ publicly reviewed. Transparency Warrior Rex Patrick reports.
Back in April 2024, in the context of a newly announce ‘Made in Australia’ policy, MWM wrote about our flat-lined manufacturing as a percentage of GDP (5%) and our plummeting economic complexity world ranking (105th).
We did not blame the Albanese Government for this … it’s taken many governments, all focussed predominantly on exporting our rocks and fossil fuels, to get this to happen. With optimism we wrote of new opportunities to fix the manufacturing percentage and the economic complexity numbers.
Our optimism was caveated on the need for strong and effective leadership. The question was, did Albanese have what it takes? “I guess we’ll see, in due course”, we proposed.
Wrong course
On 18 November last year CSIRO’s Chief Executive, Dr Doug Hilton, issued a statement of intent for the organisation. Embedded in the announcement were the words, “the organisation will need to reduce roles in its Research Units by between 300 to 350 full-time equivalent …”
As we sit at 105th position in the world’s ranking of economic complexity, down from 62nd in 1995, and the Government’s response is to reduce the number of scientists looking to determine our future.
It’s dumb and dumber stuff; literally.
The move has, rightfully, drawn attention from the parliament, with Greens’ senators Barbara Pocock and Peter Whish-Wilson, and independent Senator David Pocock initiating a Senate inquiry into the CSIRO.
Don’t blame us
Responding to a question on job cuts when announcing the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the Government was not to blame, pointing the finger at CSIRO’s senior leadership.
“From the government’s point of view, we’ve been increasing their resourcing, $45 million extra last time, $233 million extra this time and that’s because we believe in the crucial role that science broadly and the CSIRO plays in the future of our economy.”
“How the CSIRO manages their budget is a matter for them and their Board, they’ve made it clear that the pressures on their budget have not come from Government cuts, on the contrary we’ve been increasing their budget,” Dr Chalmers said.
It was akin to Prime Minister Albanese suggesting that travel allowance abuse was not his responsibility, about a week before he was forced to refer the issue to the Remuneration Tribunal.
CSIRO is an organisation that contributes directly to the nation’s future, but the Government’s washing its hands of the manner in which it’s configured.
Chalmers’ statement is disingenuous.
A Freedom Of Information (FIO) request by MWM has revealed the Government has been kept fully abreast of CSIRO’s plans, including a substantive brief that goes back as far as 2024.
Scientist secrecy
MWM’s FOI request was for ministerial briefs and any internal analysis on the effect of the sackings on Australia’s science capability. After initially threatening to not process the request on the grounds that it involved 2,586 pages of relevant information (which resulted in MWM narrowing the scope of the request), CSIRO has declared it has two ministerial briefs and Executive Team documents that it is not willing to share with the Australian public.
The million-dollar CSIRO top scientist doesn’t want his research peer or publicly reviewed.
The two briefs that are being withheld from the public are ministerial briefs, but that’s not stopping CSIRO from calling them cabinet documents. CSIRO acknowledged that the briefs have not been to Cabinet.
I appears CSIRO is good at science and awful at administrative law (perhaps being awful suits them). The reasoning provided in the FOI decision will fail on review.
Figure 1 – Not Cabinet Documents, but Cabinet exempt (Source: CSIRO)
Shrinking violets
Recognising the fragility (or perhaps, improperness) of their Cabinet exemption claim, CSIRO also asserts that disclosure of their work will take them from almost seven-digit salaried tall scientist to wilted violets unable to function.
Figure 2 – Fearful Advice exemption (Source: CSIRO)
It’s a case of “our advice is fearless, although we actually fear anyone but the minister seeing it’.
MWM will submit on appeal that this sort of advice is advice the minister should have no regard to. We will also ask under cross examination if the CEO thinks his salary allows him to do anything other than give the most candid advice.
Dehumanising
Another reason the public can’t see the documents is because doing so “could be reasonably expected to cause undue stress or other emotional or psychological harm to a large cohort of CSIRO staff (whether ultimately actually affected by the subject matter or not).”
CSIRO management thinks that announcing to their scientific team that 350 of them will lose their jobs won’t cause them undue stress or other emotional or psychological harm, but the pathway that management took to come to that decision will.
It’s nonsense on stilts.
350 scientists will go, and CSIRO’s not saying who. The best information they have is that 130-150 will go from the 715 ‘Environment’ scientist pool, 100 -110 from the 329 scientists in ‘Health and Biosecurity’ and 25-35 from the scientists 364 ‘Minerals’.
They all got to spend Christmas lunch with their families contemplating their futures, yet somehow the giving of details of the sacking science will cause greater harm to them.
Perhaps the advice-cowards in Executive team weren’t listening when Senator Pocock told Hilton at Senate Estimates of a letter he’d received from a CSIRO employee writing ‘The system is not only dehumanised; it is now dehumanising.‘
Hunger Games … but not for AUKUS
Senator Whish-Wilson did have a minute at the end of the Estimates hearing to question whether ‘Hunger Games’ were now being played out inside the organisation, as reported by media.
Once can only imagine the laboratory atmosphere.
Meanwhile the Albanese ministry happily obfuscates. The Government needs to control the budget so that they can properly fund economic complexity in the AUKUS shipyards of the US (15th place for economic complexity) and UK (7th place).
Australia, in their view, don’t seem to appreciate the need for domestic manufacturing and diversity of exports. They clearly believe that our future lies in exporting fossil fuel – and are granting long term approvals accordingly.
And with 150 fewer environmental scientists around, there’ll be fewer hurdles standing in the way of their plans.
Climate Betrayal: how backroom deals with Japan locked Australia in for decades of gas
Endnote: MWM has appealed CSIRO’s FOI decision to the Information Commissioner but asked that the appeal be shifted to the Administrative Review Tribunal. The appeal will not be dealt with before the Senate Inquiry concludes, something that will suit the CSIRO and Government.