Despite Kiwi science often being pontificated by the government as a shimmering, gold-brick path ahead into a brighter, wealthier future, predictably there was little or no extra Budget support for those whom ministers love to talk up and go all weak at the knees over.
It’s actually quite a bravura performance from the coalition in how to talk the talk but not walk the walk, in how to genuinely appear so enthusiastic about the sector, on the one hand, yet on the other do just about everything possible to stymie its future and the future of its workforce.
Her successor, Dr Shane Reti, has kept fairly quiet after the Marsden shemozzle, although he did recently say the government had officially abandoned any hopes of lifting Aotearoa’s creaking research and development spending to even a derisory 2% of gross domestic product in the next 10 years.
Our current spending on R&D is 1.54%, half that of the Scandinavian nations we often like to compare ourselves with.
Even though the government has scrapped the 2% target, it has recently been chuntering that that doesn’t mean any less should be spent on research, as it fearlessly embarks on a one-step forward, two-steps back, expedition to the emerald city, where a truly science and innovation-focused economy lives.
After the lack of any significant funding for science endeavours in the Budget, it seems like, if anyone is in need of going back to school to learn what science is, it is the members of this government.
Their favoured image of a laboratory with an endless trail of dollar notes pumping out of it on a conveyer belt and dropping into a box labelled “The Crown’s — mitts off” is one someone really should take them to task over.
Looking at science in this Budget, it is hard to see where any significant disbursements will be made. What is even more alarming is that this comes as major science reforms are under way, which will result in the seven Crown research institutes being resurrected as three new Public Research Organisations.
Where oh where is the extra money which the government’s science system advisory group, headed by former prime minister’s chief science adviser Sir Peter Gluckman, pleaded was desperately needed for the country to reset its research sector?
A paltry $20 million has been set aside across two years to help CRIs transition to PROs, but even this appears to have been existing money reallocated from research funding.
On top of that, Niwa will be given $5m to buy the shares of MetService as the “merger” between the two proceeds. For an organisation the size of Niwa and with pockets to match, that amount would be a drop in the bucket for the agency to find itself. Both will join forces with GNS Science to form a much larger natural hazards PRO.
Scientists and commentators are calling out the government on its feeble support for science and research. Te Pûnaha Matatini researchers describe it as a “one-eyed focus on economic growth driven by science advances in science, technology and innovation, with limited investment in the people and fundamental research that underpins it all”.
University of Otago deputy vice-chancellor, research and enterprise, Prof Richard Blaikie, describes it as “another year of treading water”. He says future generations will not thank us for focusing on the “what we can afford” rather than the “must-haves” when it comes to research to improve wellbeing.
New Zealand Association of Scientists co-president Dr Troy Baisden is even more alarmed: “Following last year’s nothing-burger budget for science, this year edges toward a black-hole burger. Many areas of research may now be heading across a threshold where there’s no escape.”
What is clear is Kiwi science needs leadership and it needs funding. Its current trajectory is downhill all the way.
