Lisa Singh

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOORSTOP

THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST 2016

 

SUBJECT/S: CSIRO Cuts; 2016 Census; Marriage Equality Plebiscite 

 

SENATOR LISA SINGH: Look I think the announcement today of Greg Hunt’s ministerial directive is really a cynical attempt by the government to somehow hoodwink the public that they are somehow serious about climate change. If the government was serious about climate change it will be putting funding back into climate science that it took out. I think that is the message here that we need to recognise 75 climate scientists were in and now only 15 are being put back. There was some $220 million dollars of funding cut and only 35 million being put back. So how is the government serious about climate science when that is the only level of input they are providing?

JOURNALIST: Is this a backflip from the government?

SENATOR LISA SINGH: I think it’s more than a backflip, a backflip would be actually patching up the mistakes they made. I don’t think it’s a U-turn at all, I think it’s a half turn if that because if Greg Hunt was serious about climate science he would recognise firstly that direct action is not going to reduce our 2 degrees of global warming that is required, it does not help us meet our Paris agreements. And on top of that, the ministerial directive he’s provided us with today won’t help with that either.  So this comes after of course a lot of embarrassment in the international scientific community about our cuts to climate science. Why didn’t Greg Hunt intervene before when he was minister for environment on these drastic cuts to the CSIRO? He’s saying it’s a different government. It’s the same government, just with him in a new portfolio and I remember at the time when Labor was calling on a ministerial directive, the government said it wouldn’t interfere with the independence of the CSIRO. Well now it’s doing exactly that. It is issuing a new ministerial directive but that directive does not go far enough so that’s the issue here; it is simply a half-baked attempt to tell the public that the government is serious about climate science and serious about climate change and to patch up it’s standing with the international scientific community.

JOURNALIST: How have these sort of conflicted messages effected Australia’s reputation in scientific research?

SENATOR LISA SINGH: Well at the time we had some 60 odd scientists from across the world come out completely deplored the position the Australian Government was taking in regards to climate science. Of course, Hobart is one of the main stays of climate science. We have lost many climate scientists, many imminent climate scientists such as Dr. John Church have been made redundant and once they’re gone they’re gone; and they’ve gone to a number of countries in the world such as Chile for example. If we are going to keep these best and brightest experts in climate scientists here in Hobart and here in the CSIRO then the Government has to show a little bit more than the $35 million that it has put back in to this date. These cuts should never have happened to the CSIRO. The government did nothing while the CSIRO executive initiated these cuts and now it’s trying to patch up its relationship with the international scientific community by showing its putting some input into climate science. We have a long way to go if we want to be credible again as a body that’s going to do work in the climate science space. Australia was regarded as such an international player, as such a leader, especially within the southern hemisphere for monitoring and researching climate science. I was the deputy chair of the Senate enquiry into the CSIRO and the experts made it very clear to us that in order to mitigate you have to continue to monitor and research climate change and climate science. That is why this is so important that those scientists are kept in their roles and not made redundant and certainly fifteen is not enough.

JOURNALIST:  Is this too little too late? Has the damage already been done to our reputation and have we lost too many scientists? Is it too little too late?

SENATOR LISA SINGH: It is too little too late, but it’s not too late to patch up properly and the patch up of Greg Hunt’s announcement today certainly isn’t good enough

JOURNALIST: How is Tasmania… are we winning out of this at all? I know we have this new climate change research centre but is this good news for Tasmania?

SENATOR LISA SINGH: Look Tasmanian is known as such an important player in climate change science in fact today the ACE CRC is having it’s 25^th anniversary symposium right here in Hobart. Recognising the role that Hobart has played in climate research and climate science, if that work it going to continue then the CSIRO needs to be funded properly and it needs to have the adequate number of researchers particularly doing that work into sea level rise. We haven’t had that from the government and now we have this half U-turn approach by Minister Hunt with his new portfolio, he did absolutely nothing with the previous CSIRO cuts.

JOURNALIST: Apart from John Church are you aware of anyone else, any eminent scientists, any well-known people around Hobart that who will leave and we’ll never get back?

SENATOR LISA SINGH: I have been made known throughout this time of a number of CSIRO staff that have been made redundant or who have obviously been offered redundancies.  Obviously John Church stands out as someone who is regarded internationally as such an incredible mind and expert particularly the sea level rise research. It is such a pity and a shame we will lose him and scientists like him from the scientific community here in Hobart. All of this did not need to happen if this government was serious about climate change to begin with and did not allow CSIRO to go down this path. Public good science is what is continually needed to be provided through the CSIRO and unfortunately the government hasn’t had a commitment to that at all.

 

On the issue of the census, my office has been inundated; I know so many political offices have been. I think it is simply not good enough for Minister McCormack to say that those people who can’t get through on the call centre need to persevere. Perhaps the government should have put in the necessary resources and done the education before next Tuesday to ensure we weren’t in this position to start with. But because of the number of calls I’ve had and the concerned individuals who haven’t been able to get through to that call centre to get a hard copy of the census, I’m offering up today one of my computers in my office next week if they need to come into the office and fill out the census in a quiet place online, they are more than welcome to come in. The importance of the census cannot be under estimated; this is about a snapshot of Australian society and who we are as a nation. I don’t want to see any Tasmanian miss out on being able to complete the census. So I want to make it as accessible as possible by offering up one of my computers but of course none of this needed to be a debacle if the government had provided the resources.

I would like to make a brief comment on the plebiscite into Marriage Equality. I think the plebiscite is unnecessary and a waste of money $160 million could go a long way into supporting health and education in Tasmania. I would much rather see that money go into health and education than a waste of time plebiscite. What needs to happen is the Parliament needs to decide the matter of marriage equality in Australia rather than this backward step by the government to shove the issue off to plebiscite legislation. So whether it is in my caucus or publically I am making it very clear I do not support  plebiscite legislation and I think we should just get on and support marriage equality.

I would also like to pay tribute and thank the work of a very well-known Tasmanian Rodney Croome who has worked tirelessly for marriage equality over the last thirty years. He has stood up time and time again for the human rights of the LGBTI community and I know he will continue to do so in whatever role he takes up yet. But I would like to acknowledge in him stepping down from the Australian Marriage Equality the incredible role he has played. He is a very principled individual who I know shares that same goal as I do of the parliament deciding for marriage equality and not obviously going down the path of a waste of time and money plebiscite. 

 

Ends