Tassie scientists face uncertain future as CSIRO set to shrink
Following the announcement by Australia’s public sector union of cuts to the CSIRO, state bodies have spoken of their fears for Tasmanian researchers potentially on the chopping block.
Australia’s public sector union has been unable to confirm the number of CSIRO staff to be cut from Tasmanian facilities, but fears the hundreds of expected national cuts will hit Tassie’s research hub hard.
On Thursday, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) released a statement that “aggressive cuts” at the CSIRO were putting “Australia’s long-term productivity and innovation capacity at risk”.
“Under the leadership of Doug Hilton, the CSIRO is enduring the organisation’s biggest job cuts in a decade,” CSIRO Staff Association Section Secretary Susan Tonks said.
The CPSU states that over 440 staff have already been cut during the 2024/25 financial year, while around 200 contract jobs were left to expire.
Ms Tonks said hundreds of job cuts were still expected across the Research Portfolios, leaving CSIRO staff in limbo.
CPSU said that a scheduled evaluation of the Research Portfolios’ priorities in September this year, combined with the CSIRO’s 25/26 Portfolio May Budget Statement indicates staff reductions similar to those seen in 2024.
Projected spending for employees in the budget papers drops from $942.8m in 2025/26 to $857m in 2026/27.
“Unfortunately, there’s a clear disconnect between the government’s talk about boosting productivity and their failure to support the very institution that helps deliver it,” she said.
“But deep job cuts at the CSIRO are directly undermining Australia’s ability to innovate, compete and grow.
“This will continue to be the case as long as this government sits on its hands while hundreds of staff at the CSIRO are shown the door with little to no explanation.”
CPSU’s Tasmanian Regional Secretary Zac Batchelor said this news was bound to be hard for Tasmanian employees who are still recovering form last year’s cuts.
“For our CSIRO members to hear there is another round of cuts and without specifics of who’s affected yet, it is obviously very concerning for our Tasmanian members given cuts in the year prior,” he said.
A CPSU spokesperson said it was currently trying to identify through the CSIRO the specifics of the job cuts, work areas and regions that are affected.
CPSU is calling for the federal government to provide funding to stop job cuts and commit to the stability of the CSIRO.
The CSIRO declined to provide information on where cuts would happen in the organisation, stating it was in the process of “reshaping its research portfolio”.
“To achieve this, we must retain the distinct advantages we have as Australia’s national science agency,” the CSIRO spokesperson said.
“But we will also need to evolve, becoming sharper in our focus, doing fewer things, better and at scale.
“As we continue to evolve our portfolio, we will undertake workforce planning to ensure we have the right scale and scientific capability in place to deliver against national priorities.
The spokesperson said the CSIRO’s 2025-26 budget papers showed a decrease in the average staffing level (ASL), which is calculated based on an estimate of staffing levels over the financial year.
The decrease reflects the “reduction of our [CSIRO] Enterprise Services (non-research) staff as a restructure in that area of the organisation”, which began last year and is close to completion.
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