A Senate Economics References Committee inquiry into the Funding and Resourcing for the CSIRO has reported today with the Chair's report making six recommendations. The inquiry was set up by a joint motion ACT Independent Senator David Pocock coordinated with Senators Chandler and Whish-Wilson co-sponsoring it in November last year.

In his additional comments, Senator Pocock went further recommending a permanent, ongoing increase in CSIRO’s base appropriation alongside six other recommendations.

His campaign to save the CSIRO and prevent further jobs cuts has garnered huge public support with a petition of more than 22,000 signatures. 

Senator Pocock noted that the CSIRO employs more than 1,000 people in the ACT and has suffered huge job losses as a result of underfunding by successive governments. 

In evidence tendered to the inquiry, there was particular concern around the Environment Research Unit carrying a disproportionate burden with Professor Nathan Bindoff describing the Unit as 12 per cent of CSIRO’s workforce shouldering 43 per cent of the cuts. Senator Pocock called for the cuts to this unit to be halted and reconsidered.

Senator POcock also highlighted the need for the Albanese Government to respond decisively to the Strategic Examination of Research and Development released in March and update CSIRO’s Statement of Expectations, to substantially reduce the need for cost-recovery targets in research areas designated as public-good or as protected sovereign capabilities, and that the Statement of Expectations explicitly recognise the legitimate public-good purpose of certain research that cannot reasonably be commercialised.

“The CSIRO is one of the most successful research organisations anywhere in the world, our task is to ensure it continues to do this critical work for the good of all Australians,” Senator Pocock said.

“Per capita, federal investment in CSIRO is less than half what it was in the 1980s and the cost of research has skyrocketed, meaning they have to make cuts. This level of funding is so short-sighted as we need the work of its scientists more than ever to confront the challenges we face.

“In this time of global uncertainty we talk a lot about building sovereign capability and nowhere is that more important than in science and research.

“I’ve been pushing the government to increase revenue via a 25% tax on gas export revenues so that we can do things like invest in these core capabilities. The immediate uplift of $252.3 million to CSIRO’s appropriation in the 2026-27 Budget is less than a week’s worth of revenue such a tax would generate.

“This uplift needs to be ongoing, together with annual indexation top-ups sufficient to halt and progressively reverse the real-terms decline in CSIRO funding.

“CSIRO’s own submission states that, separately from the proposed staffing changes, the agency needs to invest at least an additional $80 to $135 million per annum over the next 10 years into essential infrastructure and technology. This is an honest acknowledgement of the gap, and the Government should take it as a floor rather than a ceiling.”

Senator Pocock pointed to the figures from the Academy of Science submission showing Australia is at 1.69 per cent gross expenditure on R&D against an OECD average of 2.7 per cent, with a 0.36 per cent government budget allocation for R&D against an OECD average of 0.74 per cent. The shortfall is around $27 billion a year. He also underscored the huge value of investing in CSIRO with its own modelling showing that every dollar invested in CSIRO returns $8.80 to the economy on a conservative estimate, against $3.50 for R&D investment generally.

Senator Pocock also called for reform of the CSIRO’s procurement practices and the full and immediate release of all documents, presentations and other outputs produced by McKinsey & Company under the 2022 Future Ways of Working engagement and the prior 2021-22 engagement. 

“There is no reasonable basis on which the public, the staff, or this Parliament should be expected to accept that nearly $2 million in consultancy spend is shielded from scrutiny on commercial-in-confidence grounds,” Senator Pocock said.