The treasurer Joe Hockey has hinted the government might be prepared to shift ground on its insistence that a crucial $150m research funding extension hinges on the passage of contentious legislation to deregulate university fees.
Leading university vice-chancellors on Wednesday added their voice to calls for the government to continue funding the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), regardless of the fate of the broader higher education package.
The Group of Eight, a strong supporter of university fee deregulation, said on Wednesday the issues “must be de-linked” because the imminent expiry of NCRIS programs “would cripple breakthrough research” and cause “obvious damage to the economy”.
Hockey said he remained hopeful the Senate would pass the higher education reforms this month, and he noted the budget challenge of the treasurer being expected “to do more with less”.
But he appeared to suggest the government was considering a compromise, when asked directly about comments by Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt that NCRIS facilities would have to start letting staff go in the next few weeks.
“It has been raised with myself, by colleagues, by the minister for education,” Hockey told the ABC on Wednesday.
“It’s something we are looking at. I can’t give you any more commitment than that because it does involve a substantial amount of money. We are trying to work that through – we really are. I can only say we want to do more in terms of research and we obviously want to support our scientists.”
The government allocated $150m in Hockey’s first budget to extend funding for NCRIS for an extra year from its scheduled expiry on 30 June 2015.
NCRIS is not specifically mentioned in the contentious higher education bill but the education minister, Christopher Pyne, has warned that the funding depended on the savings the overarching legislation would achieve.
Pyne said on Wednesday he agreed the NCRIS “must stay in place” but reaffirmed that the higher education reforms and the research funding were “inextricably linked”.
“The research community has a strong friend in the Abbott government and particularly me as the minister for education and that’s one of the reasons why the reform bill needs to pass,” Pyne said.
“If the reform bill passes in the next fortnight, NCRIS will be funded and that will solve every problem for the research community.”
Pyne, speaking at a separate event from Hockey, did not give the same signal about the possibility of unlinking the two issues and finding the money elsewhere.
“Well, because you can’t have new spending proposals without savings measures,” Pyne said, citing the budget rules imposed on portfolio ministers.
“Ministers are expected to come up with savings measures to fund programs or projects. I want to fund the national collaborative research infrastructure scheme to the tune of $150m. To do that I have to show that savings can be made. That is the reform bill.”
Pyne said he regarded the ads placed by the Group of Eight in newspapers on Wednesday as “a call to arms to the Senate to pass the reform bill”.
The group’s chief executive, Vicki Thomson, said the ads were a sign of how strongly vice-chancellors felt about the present situation.
“The fate of deregulation is critical for the future of a quality university system, but NCRIS funding should not be linked to the success or failure of the deregulation package,” she said.
“Closing NCRIS down would cripple breakthrough research that strengthens some of Australia’s key industries, and lays foundations for the industries of the future. Vital research that makes mining more efficient and crops more resistant to disease would not happen without NCRIS. Nano-fabrication research, which will drive the development of new high-tech manufacturing, will have to close down.”
Thomson said researchers would lose their jobs and critical research for Australian companies would be lost overseas.
“As just two pertinent examples; work as basic as our nation’s weather forecasting that is critical to our airlines and to the public in ensuring early warnings of extreme weather patterns will be sidelined, while work on early detection and early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease will be adversely affected,” she said.
“Our advertisement says it all. It’s a dumb decision.”
Australian research leaders addressed a Senate committee on Friday and described their fear of losing “everything that we’ve worked for” and sending jobs and expertise overseas.
The government still lacks the numbers to pass its higher education bill, but insists it will continue negotiations with crossbench senators.
Pyne is due to address the Universities Australia conference on Wednesday evening. He is likely to repeat his case for fee deregulation and to accuse Labor of planning to introduce caps on the number of undergraduate places.
