A Senate committee has recommended against legislation to stop ministers vetoing grant funding, despite strong support for the bill from the academic and research community.
The education and employment legislation committee, chaired by Nationals senator Matt Canavan, has recommended against passing a Greens private member’s bill that would amend the Australian Research Council Act 2001. The bill would prevent ministers from vetoing projects that have been recommended for funding by the Australian Research Council (ARC).
A Senate inquiry was launched after widespread condemnation of a decision by the acting education minister, Stuart Robert, to block funding for six ARC research grants in the humanities.
The inquiry heard on 9 March that ministerial vetoes had a “chilling effect” on academic independence and was making it harder to attract international research talent to Australia.
An inquiry report has concluded that the current legislation “serves the national interest”, but concedes that the ARC Act “may no longer be fit for purpose” and may need to be amended in light of “broader concerns about the ARC and its governance and research funding processes”.
The only Greens senator on the committee, Mehreen Faruqi, said government and Labor members had “teamed up” to oppose the bill and “disregard overwhelming evidence in support of it”.
Faruqi said: “Despite an overwhelming majority of contributors supporting the removal of the veto, the committee majority have relied selectively on evidence provided by a very small number of witnesses.”
“Politics has trumped good policymaking as both the government and Labor have refused to concede their political power to interfere with individual research grants,” she said.
A dissenting Greens statement said the process of drafting the report had been “utterly flawed, undemocratic, a breach of due process, and completely lacking in transparency”, and that “no time was allowed for discussion of proposed Greens amendments”.
The statement said: “Of the more than 80 submissions received by the committee, the overwhelming and clear majority, that is more than 85%, are in support of removing the ministerial veto.
“The position of researchers, experts, academics, peak bodies and many universities is also clear from the evidence provided during the hearing held by the committee, where the vast majority of witnesses argued for the removal of the ministerial veto.”
Labor senators said they did not support the bill, despite “strong concerns about the way in which coalition government education ministers have arbitrarily exercised their power to veto grants”.
Labor committee members instead recommended that the ARC Act be amended to require that ministers table within 15 parliamentary sitting days the “reasons, evidence and advice received” for any grant veto decision made.
A broad independent review of the ARC was required, they added, which should “go to the issue of the ARC’s role in the research system, including the operations of the ARC”.
