Onya Kev

[Skid_MacMarx]

Jobs to be axed, labs will close in CSIRO shake-up

Up to 100 jobs will be axed at the nation's science research agency as a result of Federal Budget cuts.

Dozens of jobs will be lost and CSIRO laboratories will close in Mildura in Victoria and Rockhampton in Queensland.

Mike Whelan from the CSIRO says Government funding has been cut by more than $60 million over four years.

"CSIRO is obviously disappointed with decisions that flowed from the Budget," he said.

But Michael Borgas from the CSIRO Staff Association has slammed management's decision to close the labs.

He says savings could have been made elsewhere and predicts there will be more job cuts to come.

"Up to 200 people or more could be losing their jobs," he said.

The agency says the job losses will have an impact on science research in Australia, but Mr Whelan says management was forced to make the cuts.

"There's no doubt that there will be some high quality research impacted by the Government's decision to reduce funding to CSIRO," he said.

"What we've announced today is the CSIRO's best endeavours to minimise that impact, to try to take as many costs out of our fixed overheads as we possibly can.

"We've taken positions out of our executive structure and our support structure."

Mr Borgas says closing the laboratories in Rockhampton and Mildura will have a devastating impact on food research.

"Any moves which move away from using our science to help our farmers to make better quality food and cheaper food and cope with climate change at the farm rather than just the bigger picture, is obviously going to have an effect on the hip pocket," he said.

But Mr Whelan says there was no other choice.

"It'd be fair to say there isn't any low-priority research in CSIRO," he said.

"It's all having a tremendous impact for Australia and therefore we've been faced with some tough decisions.

"We've tried to minimise the impact on scientists and on the science that we do by focusing on fixed costs and management overheads but there are some limits to that."

The Government says it was forced to make some tough Budget decisions.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/21/2251853.htm

[DrP]

Why do successive governments keep abusing the CSIRO? There seems to be a lack of comprehension on all sides that by continually cutting the CSIRO back the government is reducing their all encompassing 'productivity' in the long term - false economy at its best. Trim the fat by all means, but trimming the meat is unwise.

[Aloysius]

Yes, it seems a shame that this kind of improving organisation should be de-resourced.

It would appear to be an unwise pennypinching step that will have ongoing impacts.

Tough decisions do not have to be also stupid.

[ozymozzy]

If the government is to continue supporting the arts, it has to make cuts elsewhere. For example, it is important to government that the arts are well supported. There are several reasons for this. The main one being that many of the people involved are not capable of holding down a real job and otherwise would be inflating the unemployment figures. Also remember that actors have a great influence over the general public and governments need to keep actors on side. Just about half the non-technical magazines on sale at the newsagents contain a high percentage of stories about, and interviews with, actors.

There are also no votes in food or medical research, improved farming techniques, or breeding sterile lacewing mosquitoes. Low profile organisations such as the CSIRO will always be well down the list when it comes to government handout time. The people who lose their jobs at the CSIRO are most likely highly skilled and will find another job quickly. The effect on the unemployment figures will hardly be noticed.

It's all about staying in government and called good politics in party circles.

[DrP]

It's all about staying in government and called good politics in party circles.

$20 billion surplus, slash $60 million from the CSIRO. Not even good politics can account for that.

[Aloysius]

If the government is to continue supporting the arts, it has to make cuts elsewhere. For example, it is important to government that the arts are well supported. There are several reasons for this. The main one being that many of the people involved are not capable of holding down a real job and otherwise would be inflating the unemployment figures. Also remember that actors have a great influence over the general public and governments need to keep actors on side. Just about half the non-technical magazines on sale at the newsagents contain a high percentage of stories about, and interviews with, actors.

There are also no votes in food or medical research, improved farming techniques, or breeding sterile lacewing mosquitoes. Low profile organisations such as the CSIRO will always be well down the list when it comes to government handout time. The people who lose their jobs at the CSIRO are most likely highly skilled and will find another job quickly. The effect on the unemployment figures will hardly be noticed.

It's all about staying in government and called good politics in party circles.

We talking cake and circuses here?

[Skid_MacMarx]

I wonder if Rudd will utilise the White Elephant Christmas Island Detention Centre for something useful.

Call to turn detention centre into research facility

Civic leaders are urging the Commonwealth to find a new purpose for the Christmas Island detention centre.

The $400 million Christmas Island Immigration Detention facility was built as part of the Howard government's asylum policy.

About 20 security staff patrol it and 20 cleaners maintain it but no one is living in the 400-bed facility.

Christmas Island Shire president Gordon Thompson wants the facility used as a scientific research centre.

"It would be good to see that place used for something useful," he said.

Mr Thompson is not convinced the Rudd Government wants to keep it.

A spokesman for the Immigration Minister Chris Evans says the facility will simply remain empty until it is needed.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/23/2253290.htm

[Steve C]

Low profile organisations such as the CSIRO will always be well down the list when it comes to government handout time. The people who lose their jobs at the CSIRO are most likely highly skilled and will find another job quickly. The effect on the unemployment figures will hardly be noticed.

It's all about staying in government and called good politics in party circles.

If; as you say, the CSIRO is a low profile organisation: then it'd be equally fair to say that many of it's facilities and activities - like the Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor and the research undertaken there, are also low profile - right...

I also love how blase some people can be with forecasting the ease with which others will be able to gain re-employment.

I suspect that if the boot of "instant career change" was applied to the butts of those people who are so quick to say, "oh... but they're highly qualified, so every employer in the country (apart from the CSIRO of course!) is going to hand them jobs on a platter!" - the response would be radically different.

All of a sudden, it'd be a situation that "should never be allowed to happen" - because in the best tradition of the "I'm alright Jack mentality", pain is something others should suck up with ease... just as long as the pain never strikes those who fallaciously believe their Universe - unlike everyone else's, is set in concrete.

The direct effect of job losses to the CSIRO may indeed be hardly noticed in the near term employment figures - but that's the sort of near sighted thought process that the CSIRO doesn't stand for.

The CSIRO has; and always will be, about the long term viability and well being of our country, it's flora, fauna, agriculture, and it's people.

If the short term "instant gratification" mentality your post encapsulates is to be the guiding principle behind the Rudd Government's approach to the workings of an organisation like the CSIRO - especially at a time when our country requires a vibrant and committed scientific community that can develop processes and products with industrial and market applications; we will definitely be in the poo-cack... and those of us; who like myself, voted for a Rudd led Government will be feeling that if this is the first stab of betrayal - it's big enough that it'd better be the last...

I didn't respond to the original post - simply because I'm aware of the sort of media hysteria that can be engendered by premature pronouncements of supposed "cut backs", which boil down to certain departmental individuals being overly paranoid when they read a synopsis of certain departmental proposals.

I've seen it before as a Government employee. Someone runs about declaring the "sky is going to fall" (mainly because they're scared of losing their own job)... and after a few weeks everyone realises that a couple of clouds have decended onto a few incompotent pen pushers in head office and that's about it - it's back to work as usual.

I'm hoping in this particular case, that my gut feeling - given my previous experience; is pretty close to the actuality... because if my gut feeling is proved wrong, I'll be mightily piddled off with a Government that puts the knife up the CSIRO!

[Thudd1503560234]

It does seem a non-Labor thing for them to do; they've traditionally been supporters of things like higher education and research activities, so here's hoping this is just as Steve C has said a misinterpretation by a paranoid bureaucrat. Then again it's not a traditional Labor administrator either.

[ozymozzy]

We talking cake and circuses here?

I'd be more inclined to call it smoke and mirrors. Glad at least someone saw the post as it was intended. laugh.gif