TRANSCRIPT: 6PR Perth
8 October 2024
E&OE
Topics: Australian Research Council Government Waste
Gary Adshead
A number of grant funds that are given from taxpayers by government to universities and other organisations to do research into things. It lists some curious items at great expense to us, the taxpayer, and it's been questioned now by the opposition federally. James Stevens is the Opposition spokesman on government waste, and he joins me right now. G'day, James,
James Stevens
Hello, Gary, good to be with you and your listeners.
Gary Adshead
Now listen, you found around, is it $20 million of taxpayers money, and you're questioning some of the academic research here?
James Stevens
Look, that's right, Gary. The Australian Research Council give out about $900 million a year to a variety of...
Gary Adshead
Sorry, 900 sorry? Stop there, 900 million dollars?
James Stevens
That's right. And look, some of those are very worthy projects, of course, because their research into a range of important things that benefit Australian society, but working through the list of those that have been announced for next year, there's some very disturbing ones, from my point of view, that we're really questioning as to whether or not our hard earned taxpayer funds should be going towards. I mean, to give you a couple of quick examples, there's nearly half a million dollars going to a project to identify the causes of gender bias in the staged English language translations of ancient Greek tragedy.
Gary Adshead
Please! Sorry.
James Stevens
That's right! There's another, another half a million to dispel the myth that Australia is girt by sea and then, of course, we've got this very curious one, which is a project advancing the role of the arts as the missing link in global movements of multi-species justice, which was a term I'd never actually heard of before. It's something to do with, you know, non homo sapien justice movement, better understanding how music can assist with their concerns in whether or not they're getting access to appropriate natural justice. So it's some very curious examples. And you know when families and your listeners right across the country are making tough decisions around the kitchen table right now to tighten the belt and make the household budget stack up, it's pretty curious that our government is, you know, dolling out money on this sort of thing.
Gary Adshead
Well, okay, you just mentioned the one about girt by sea. So $476,000 has gone towards challenging and I'll quote the 'protectionist myth that Australia is an island continent, a Gert by sea'. What? What? What the hell? Well, I certainly can't explain how in the world that is something worth looking at, let alone worth putting half a million dollars worth of taxpayer funding towards. But that's what's happened. The Research Council have said to the University of Sydney, good idea here is $476,000.
Gary Adshead
It's disgraceful. It's just beyond belief. What are they? Are they, I don't know whether you've read much more of the the sort of preamble to what they plan to do, but I mean, are they suggesting they want to try and disprove the fact that we're an island, and if I get on a boat, I can't circumnavigate Australia? Is that what they're trying to show? I mean, what are they on about?
James Stevens
Well, Your guess is as good as mine, because I think any of the grey nomads listening to your program right now who have done the Great Aussie trip around continental Australia would be able to very easily confirm, if anyone needed confirming, that Australia is, of course, an island continental nation. And you know, this is some strange sort of social engineering experiment that some academic wants to do. And look, they can do that with their own resources. But why are we paying for it? That's the big question.
Gary Adshead
See, I reckon you've hit on something, I think, and you would know that for years and years and years, this sort of money's doled out, right? It's not, you know, it doesn't normally make headlines. It's kind of just there behind the scenes, that money, and I'm not saying this government alone, successive governments, probably, and then no one really stopped to think, why, at a time when you talk about cost of living crisis, are we paying someone to determine whether or not we're really an island? I mean, I think you've hit on something here. What's going to be done about it, though?
James Stevens
Well, when we were in government, the minister actually had discretion over these funds, and quite often Coalition Ministers stomped on these sorts of proposals, and they reviewed the list and they said, No, we're not going to spend half a million dollars disproving the fact that Australia is a continental island. But look, Labor have changed the policy, and now the Education Minister doesn't review these things before they're doled out. So we're in a situation now where the Research Council have awarded all this funding and it's just going to flow as per these determinations. And look, you know, I'm a member of parliament. I'm accountable to my constituents, like every MP is when we make bad decisions we're subject to being turfed out at the next election, and that's how it how it should be, but this is a circumstance where bureaucrats are being allowed to make these decisions with no oversight of people that are then accountable to the people at the next election. So that needs to be reversed. And I can certainly assure you that if we win the next election, the Education Minister will be running a ruler over these sorts of things and ensuring that patently ridiculous proposals are not funded by the taxpayer.
Gary Adshead
Well, I don't know what listeners think of it, but I'll give you another one, that one in Tasmania 'explore games and play based activities to engage a range of citizens in setting the agenda for climate adaptation and policy'. Now that one there, that little gem, has got $487,736 to achieve its aim. I mean, really?
James Stevens
Well, look, what could we be doing with that money, so many other things, or we could certainly even put it back in the pocket of the average Australian, if that's what you know, we're doing with our taxpayer funds. So it's just not fair that families and small businesses, at the moment, are tightening their belt. They're dealing with these, you know, dramatic increases in in household costs, interest rates, rents, grocery prices, you name it, are all going up. People are making tough decisions, canceling family holidays, all sorts of things. And they would probably be quite horrified to see that while they're making those sacrifices, we've got a government spending money on this sort of thing.
Gary Adshead
All right, okay. Well, look, I don't know how far you can push it at the moment, but certainly raising it here, I think it's an issue that will really frustrate and annoy people. I appreciate you joining us today to go through it. James,
James Stevens
It's my pleasure, Gary. Thanks so much for having me on.
Gary Adshead
So that's James Stevens. He's the Opposition's government spokesperson on waste. All right, now you tell me whether you reckon that's a waste. How about Monash University. They've got a grant to study into Chinese Australian writing about indigenous people, culture and country from the 19th century. That's $393,000. We're not talking small biccies here. Every one of the ones that we see here, the minimum grant is 387,525 and the biggest grant is $3.76 million to identify, as you heard, the missing link in global movements of multi species justices using innovative musical approaches to communicate the urgency of climate change. I "S" you not, that is what they are getting $3.7 million for. I reckon, every now and then, I just have an air of naivety about me, but I've been around a fair while and to actually see in black and white, that this is where your taxpayer dollars are going in the world of academia - and we all know that this has probably been going on for years - but what I'm saying is to actually see it. I am absolutely flabbergasted that any government could sign off on those grants for those ridiculous, outrageous pieces of research that are absolutely unnecessary. I don't want to offend any academics that are out there, but you're taking the P155 with this stuff.