E&OE…
Topics: CSIRO, same sex marriage plebiscite, Bill Shorten,
STEVE PRICE:
The Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science Greg Hunt has made some announcements of his own in regard to the CSIRO and he's joined us in the studio tonight. Minister, thanks for your time.
GREG HUNT:
And good evening Steve.
STEVE PRICE:
How important is the CSIRO to Australia? What sort of things are you talking about getting them to do given that you've given them the grand task of becoming the world's premier research organisation in ten years?
GREG HUNT:
Well correct. Look the CSIRO is a very important organisation. Over the last century it's improved the quality of our food and our agriculture, its helped deal with wheat, its helped deal with issues such as leukaemia and diabetes. It's right at the forefront of communications. The Wi-Fi that we all take granted came from a CSIRO discovery and invention. So it's a really powerful organisation. As good as it is I think it should aspire to be and can be the premier research organisation of its kind anywhere in the world, I think that's reasonable for us to aim to, it's a great platform that it can go to that level and then it should be dealing with the big new developments in science that can bring benefits to Australians. Treatment for injuries and ailments, through looking at how we can deal with our DNA and make real changes on the medical science front. It's very exciting.
STEVE PRICE:
Labor would have us believe that under the former prime minister Tony Abbott and it was before you were minister that the Government tried to cut the guts out of CSIRO, workers were sacked, they run their organisation but there were job losses. Why the turnaround?
GREG HUNT:
Look I think that the CSIRO is very important. What we're doing just to give your listeners a context is we're increasing the total budget for the CSIRO by 100 million per annum by 2019. So just over 100 million over the course of the next three years but that allows it to do work in agriculture, in health, in communications, but also we expect them not just to do the research but wherever possible to commercialise it, not just for money although that helps them do more, but in particular to take the benefits to Australians. So with Monash University for example they've done work on leukaemia and providing new treatments for that. Just horrendous cancer which affects so many children, so many other people, and that's the sort of real world benefit that they can bring. So you get the Wi-Fi on the one hand but leukaemia treatment, making our crops much more hardy and resistant and nutritious. So things that have profound real world benefits, that's what I want to say.
STEVE PRICE:
I don't want to get hung up on this though but the politics of it, why the change of heart?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think the point is that there's a long term future for CSIRO. Much of the previous case before the election was just that. It was election talk. So what we've done is make it absolutely clear that CSIRO will grow in budget and will grow in numbers. Some of the other positions put by frankly very partisan players were not accurate and I'm setting out exactly what we're doing. It will increase in budget, it will increase in numbers but equally it's expected to produce outcomes that will benefit the economy and benefit the quality of life for Australians.
STEVE PRICE:
Well that's your point, I mean you're operating in obviously a budget constraint where we need to save as much money as possible off the bottom line rather than spend money. You mention Wi-Fi, but what return financially to the Australian taxpayer did that Wi-Fi invention have and what guarantees if CSIRO come up with some marvellous invention in whatever area, that it is self-funding, the funding comes back to the people who fund it in the first place?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think you're absolutely right. Wi-Fi was a boat which Australia significant missed. It was developed off the back of the wireless local area network inventions that were done within CSIRO. There was some money at the time. We've just won a case that's been prosecuted which has delivered the best part of half a billion dollars to CSIRO, but frankly if it had been done properly, in the past there would have been a lot greater return. So the big change that I'm making.
STEVE PRICE:
Well that's like inventing the iPhone and getting no return for it.
GREG HUNT:
I agree and that's why we've just won a trademark and patents case to get half a billion dollars back for the Australian public and that's a successful result. But right now what we're saying is that as we go forward CSIRO should be commercialising their own developments. And what does that mean? It means the Australian taxpayer gets the benefit of the development but they get the benefit of the return. So there's a significant commercialisation fund. That's about taking the things from the lab to the people and then getting the return back for the taxpayer. So frankly I looked at it, I couldn't agree more and one of the things we're doing is to make sure that we actually get that commercialisation happening and then we get the dollars back into the hands of the Australian people. Wi-Fi's helped the world but it didn't help Australia as much as it should have.
STEVE PRICE:
You've asked CSIRO to get back involved the investigation of climate science. Is that a hard argument for you to prosecute in your own party given you've still got some conservative colleagues who deny the existence of climate change?
GREG HUNT:
No look what we're doing is making sure they focus on science, on reducing emissions and on dealing with any consequences which might come in this space. And at the same time CSIRO is working on agriculture, on health and medical research, working on diabetes, working on other forms of diseases and in particular working on data and communications right at the heart of the world's most extraordinary radio telescope. The Square Kilometre Array which is being built in the West Australian desert. Why does that matter to people in Australia? It matters (a) because of the knowledge, but (b) it's developing huge new data processing capacities which mean that instead of talking about megabits per second, instead of talking about gigabits per second, it's a million times more than megabits, it's terabits per second. In other words you could virtually teleport yourself with that. So these area future communication tools on a grand scale which are coming out of CSIRO now but the difference is on our watch we'll make sure that the benefits are captured and commercialised for the Australian taxpayer.
STEVE PRICE:
Is part of the problem Greg that the explanation to the taxpayer, to the general public about what the CSIRO does hasn't been done well? I mean see an example today, I think it's Dr Cathy Foley, one of the researchers there talking about how they're working on a program for Sydney Water, that Sydney Water wants to replace all its pipes from what they call smart pipes which would be self heating and would be able to detect drugs or chemicals. Now most people in the general public would have no idea that that's the sort of work the CSIRO does, do you need to sell the message better?
GREG HUNT:
Yes I think we do, and one of the things that I want to do is be an advocate for the practical science that CSIRO's doing. It was right at the core of developing the ultrasound and contact lenses, really significant things. Right now just today I've authorised them to develop and commercialise a project which will help people with IVF to identify the times when the eggs are best placed for fertilising. Now this may sound surprising that CSIRO's doing it but they have research scientists in so many fields but you can image for somebody who's at home now, they're on the IVF program. It's an expensive program, it's a really hard program for many families to fund and support, this is about a much higher success rate for IVF which is about reducing costs for families and for the medical system but most importantly giving people a greater chance at creating and having the family that they want. So there's not much more that could be of significance to Australians with a desperate need.
STEVE PRICE:
Are we encouraging enough young people to do science at university?
GREG HUNT:
Not yet, no. I think that we need more young people to go through and do science and maths and engineering, both at school for science and maths.
STEVE PRICE:
We've got a massive shortage of engineers.
GREG HUNT:
There is. So I met with Engineers Australia last week. We employ about 20,000 engineers in Australia. We graduate about 12,000 each year so we import about 8000 and of those 12,000 about 3000 who are trained in Australia are from overseas. So there's a huge opportunity for young Australians because, you could be a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, a structural engineer, you've got electrical engineers, and these might be people who work in research, they might work in industry or they might go into business and I would say that the training that you get in engineering really equips young people to work in business. And I visited a start-up centre in Sydney today where you've got a lot of young people with science and maths and engineering. They're doing great work in business. Tomorrow I'm at the other end of the spectrum, the BlueScope steel works in Port Kembla, again science, engineering grads, working and making things and people get a lot of satisfaction from that.
STEVE PRICE:
Just before you go Bill Shorten was out again today refusing to give his final position on what Labor will do in regard to your same-sex marriage plebiscite bill, why doesn't he just say we're not going to pass it, why does he keep dragging this out when he says that it's causing pain in the community?
GREG HUNT:
Well I think that he's a fraud frankly. I think that he's a complete fraud on this issue because he's not afraid in my view of a no vote on same sex marriage, he's actually afraid of a yes vote. He's afraid that Malcolm Turnbull might achieve the very thing that he says he wants to achieve and if he were real and sincere he'd just let us get on with the vote. The Australian people voted for the Coalition and a fundamental pledge was that we would give the Australian people a say. We know that up to 70 per cent of the Australian people want to vote and we trust the Australian people and he doesn't and he's on the record as not just supporting a plebiscite but as actively preferring a plebiscite when he spoke to the Australian Christian Lobby. So the fella's a fraud.
STEVE PRICE:
It's pretty pathetic playing politics with this isn't it?
GREG HUNT:
He knows he's been caught out and at the very time he says he's trying to stand up for the interests of the gay community, he's striking a stake through the very aspiration that they want and so I would say to him, if you really want same sex marriage, let this go through. You don't have to vote for it but just don't oppose it because the people said yes at the election, the people have said they want it now and I think if you're sincere about same sex marriage there's a path to that right now and every Australian gets to vote and I think that that would be a tremendous celebration of democracy and respect for the Australian people.
STEVE PRICE:
Greg Hunt, appreciate your time. Thanks a lot.
GREG HUNT:
Thanks Steve.
(ENDS)