Mr GARRETT (Kingsford Smith) (4.07 p.m.)—I have listened with interest to the member for Eden-Monaro reflecting on the history of science and science research, but I think it is important for us to reflect on what is actually in this report and what it signals for basic research and research on renewable energy in this country. Most importantly, this report conveys what we on this side of the House have been saying for some time. So let us take a quick look back. On 23 March 2003 the then shadow minister for science and research, referring to a cost blow-out at CSIRO, raised the prospect of the damage to long-term research programs as a result of problems with the CSIRO business model and the approach taken to the funding of CSIRO under this government. He was absolutely spot on. The CSIRO annual report 2002-03 exposed the seeds of a funding crisis that had been ongoing for some seven years under the Howard government with the prospect of a newly emphasised business model, driven through the Business Development and Commercialisation unit, failing to reach projected earnings targets each time around.

A year later, we had further evidence of the sorry state CSIRO research has fallen into under the stewardship of this government. It had a deficit of $9.2 million and a serious decline in earnings from external sources and research. As a consequence, research for renewables is to be pared back to what CSIRO euphemistically calls ‘areas in which we have competitive advantages’. One must ask: how do you achieve a competitive advantage if you do not do research in the area concerned? We await the government’s answer to this basic question—and also to the question: what research areas will go?

The report we are referring to is entitled ‘Advice to Executive Management Council on broad direction setting in the science investment process’. It makes for interesting reading. It is couched in the language of those who are facing a crisis but need to find expressions to hide it. We read that the team has adopted a ‘precautionary principle’—they will need to, given the difficulties CSIRO faces. ‘Precautionary principle’ is an environmental term. It is an area in which the organisation has done, and still could do, fine work, except that this report—when you read it carefully—signals an intention to cut back research in renewable energy and other important areas too. The report goes on to say:

… recognising that we are working with a new process, but, at the same time (the group) has provided an indicative set of priorities and challenges with which group executives and others can shape a theme based response to those longer-term priorities.

When you cut through the thicket of bureaucratese, what is their response? Cuts to farm-based agricultural research and the scaling back of renewables research. As this is an advisory report, the CSIRO Executive Management Council and other people are quoted in the press as:

... having been asked to put their name on the dance card because ... tough calls had to be made.

The media got that right. A tough call does have to be made—on a government which is presiding over a situation in which our pre-eminent scientific research organisation is lurching from crisis to crisis. It is clear that the strategic direction that has been set by the government and the leadership of CSIRO is flawed. The organisation has not been able to deliver increases in research expenditure, and its attempts to ramp up business and commercialisation development funding simply have not succeeded. As well, we have seen corresponding threats and staff cuts. And now, in the 2004-05 annual report, the deficit has blown out by 73 per cent, notwithstanding a doubling in the number of senior executive salaries above $300,000. Research cuts are now contemplated which would apply to at least two areas of research that are critical to our long-term sustainability as a nation: crop and livestock research and renewable energy research.

Our greenhouse gas emissions are skyrocketing. What a woeful situation. Public interest research is heading out the door and our finest minds are stranded by a government that will not provide adequate support for CSIRO. The result? Necessary research is being sacrificed on the altar of business commercialisation. This is the situation CSIRO finds itself in at a time when there is not only great potential for renewable energy but when the Minister for the Environment and Heritage has finally seen the light and has come around to what we on this side of the House, the mainstream scientific community and the public have been saying for so long—namely, that global warming and corresponding climate change pose real threats to our natural ecosystems, our health and our way of life. Yet, at such a time, we are scaling back the research on renewables.

Some countries face this challenge in a different way: they actually invest in research and innovation and set in place the financial and legislative framework to build employment and create clean industries. But Australia, it seems, is doing the opposite. We have closed down every renewable energy strategic funding agency, including the CRCs which deal with these issues—which, to the great credit of those on this side of the House, were instituted by the Hawke government. Australia, under the Howard government, seems to be doing absolutely zip. We have the lowest possible mandatory renewable energy targets, no national framework or trading regime for energy emissions and no targeted cuts to greenhouse emissions.

It is self-evident to everyone in the House that funding levels for CSIRO should be maintained and that areas such as renewable energy should be prudently supported. After all, the Japanese government invests some $200 million annually in its solar rebate program alone. As a consequence, Japan leads the world in the manufacture and use of solar PV. I remind the House that Australian scientists, including scientists at CSIRO, pioneered the research on solar PV. In the early 1990s, Germany had virtually no renewable energy industry. The German parliament introduced the electricity feed law, or EFL, which required utilities to purchase electricity generated from renewable energy and to pay a minimum price for it—in the case of wind and solar, at least 90 per cent of the retail price. We have very few measures that match what the Germans have done.

In Denmark, a specific policy decision was initiated by the government in the early nineties to increase their investment and research in wind energy. As a consequence—and despite the prognostications of those who thought it would fail—the proportion of energy that Denmark’s wind industry produces for the electricity grid has gone from single to double figures. It has become a major export industry for that country, and it employs lots of scientists and young Danes as well in the process.

It is true that the report ‘identifies priorities to strengthen research on environmental challenges’. Hallelujah! But here the cart is well ahead of the horse, because its suggestion that the organisation reduce its support for those areas which have the capacity to significantly address the very challenges to the environment that will be identified is a nonsense. We need to focus on how to produce energy, especially for stationary use, without increasing pollution by greenhouse gasses, without creating long-lived radioactive wastes and without creating additional strains on the atmosphere or the environment. Whilst renewables are not a totally magic bullet, they are an essential part of any suite of energy sources and will become increasingly critical in coming years.

The member says that the Howard government has approached renewables with some vigour. I have to say that the picture is completely the opposite. Support for the renewables industry has been so paltry by this government that I have representations to my office on a regular basis—as I am sure the shadow minister for the environment has too—of renewable energy industries complaining about the fact that they are unable to get sufficient framework investment or support in this country in order to maintain their businesses, and now they are going offshore. That is happening at this point in time and it is to this government’s great shame that it is happening.

The renewable industry sector is growing at about 30 per cent per annum. That is where the opportunities are. But under the government, if this report is acted upon, the premier scientific institution in the country, the CSIRO, will scale back its very modest work on renewables. So it is self-evident that, despite the warning signs, the staff unrest and losses, the deficits, the struggles and difficulties that CSIRO has recently faced, it is really the government that has been asleep at the wheel. (Time expired)