Coalition will reject Labor’s Australian Research Council overhaul

The Coalition has rejected Labor’s plan to end the ministerial power of veto over Australian Research Council grants.

The Coalition has rejected Labor’s plan to end the ministerial power of veto over Australian Research Council grants.

The federal Coalition will oppose the Albanese government’s planned reforms to the Australian Research Council that will strip ministers of the power to veto funding for individual research projects, except on national security grounds.

In debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, opposition science spokesman Paul Fletcher defended the decisions made by past Coalition ministers to reject ARC funding recommendations and said the opposition would not back the government’s amendments to the ARC Act.

The ARC distributes more than $800m a year for university research and Mr Fletcher said that in the 2021-22 year, the then Coalition minister had vetoed only six out of nearly 600 projects.

The government’s planned ARC reforms, which follow a review led by Queensland University of Technology vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil, would end the education minister’s role as the final decision-maker on ARC grants and give the power to a new ARC board, which would be appointed under the legislation.

However, under Labor’s plan, the minister will retain some key powers. The minister will be able to veto funding decisions made by the ARC board if there is a risk to national security, but any action taken on these grounds must be reported to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security and mentioned in the ARC’s annual report.

The minister will also retain the power to decide large ARC research spending decisions such as establishing centres of excellence.

Opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Henderson said Australia’s research sector should be required to use taxpayers’ money in the national interest.

“Labor’s proposal to outsource funding decisions involving more than half a billion dollars of public money to an ARC board, unaccountable to the parliament, is irresponsible,” Senator Henderson said.

“Without oversight from the minister, there is a risk that wasteful or questionable research projects will be funded, which shows how little Labor cares about safeguarding taxpayers’ funds.”

However, Education Minister Jason Clare said it was “no surprise that the Liberal Party have said they’ll oppose this bill”.

“ They want the Australian Research Council to remain a political plaything for future Liberal ministers,” Mr Clare said.

Professor Sheil, who led the ARC review, said the recommendations, which were accepted by the government, “balanced off ministerial accountability and responsibility with international best practice”.

“We’ve said the minister can set guidelines and appoint the board, and retain responsibility for big government investments, and have the capacity to intervene if there is a national security issue,” she said.

Professor Sheil said her review had avoided adopting the more extreme UK position in which there was no ministerial oversight of research funding.

She said ministerial interventions to reject funding for research projects that had been recommended by the ARC were a “poor practice”, which had damaged Australia’s international reputation.

The Group of Eight universities, which carry out most of Australia’s university research, support the end of blanket ministerial powers to reject research projects

“For too long there has been a perception of – and in some cases real – bias (by ministers) and political interference on the basis of a simplistic reading of research grants,” said Go8 chief executive Vicki Thomson.

However, she said the ARC should not have to foot the bill, estimated at $1.5m a year, to support the ARC’s new board. Mr Fletcher said the opposition agreed, because the ARC budget was already under pressure.