Senators line up with Labor as education minister is condemned for ‘holding 1,700 jobs hostage’ by threatening science funding if package does not pass

Christopher Pyne’s threat to cut research funding and jeopardise the jobs of 1,700 Australian scientists if the Senate blocks his higher education changes appears to be backfiring with crucial crossbenchers backing a Labor motion demanding the money be guaranteed before any vote on the package.



“There are consequences for not voting for this reform and that’s very important for the crossbenchers to understand. The consequences are that potentially 1,700 researchers will lose their jobs because while the government spends $9bn a year on research, the $150m National Collaborative and Research Infrastructure Scheme [NCRIS] was de-funded by Labor. I want to re-fund it … and I’ve had to find the savings and the savings are in the [higher education] reform.

“Therefore the savings and the spending are linked. You can’t do one without the other,” Pyne told the ABC’s Insiders program.

But Labor’s education spokesman Senator Kim Carr demanded Pyne “capitulate on his campaign of bullying and intimidation”.

“I will be moving a motion in the senate on Monday to demand the government release the research funding immediately, before any vote on the higher education bills,” Carr said.

“There is no link between the research funding, which has always been a temporary program and had 21 months worth of funding left when Pyne took over the portfolio, but which successive governments have always refunded. The only link is the minister’s attempt to use the research funding as blackmail.

“It is unethical and immoral for Pyne to hold the jobs of 1,700 scientists hostage to his flawed policies.”

Carr said his motion would be co-signed in the Senate by crossbenchers Ricky Muir, Jacqui Lambie, Nick Xenophon, Glenn Lazarus and John Madigan, as well as the Palmer United party’s single remaining senator, Dio Wang – the very same group Pyne has to date failed to convince to support his higher education reforms.

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon said Pyne’s “brinkmanship is not going to work”. “This is reckless toxic politics at its worst,” he told Guardian Australia.

“My memo to Chris Pyne is this: you aren’t in student politics any more Chris,” said Xenophon, who is threatening to run independent candidates in the South Australian lower house seats, including Pyne’s marginal seat of Sturt.

Lambie called for Pyne’s resignation over the threat, and said she would try to get an early discharge from hospital - where she has undergone back surgery - so she could personally help vote down the government’s higher education bill.

“Education minister Christopher Pyne’s latest threat to hold to ransom 1,700 research jobs is the last straw. He should just resign or the PM should just sack him. This makes my blood boil. It is just another desperate, juvenile and bumbling attempt to blackmail the senate crossbenchers into voting for his so-called higher education reforms,” she said.



Muir, Lambie and Xenophon are also understood to still oppose the government’s plans to deregulate higher education, which have already been significantly watered down in an attempt to gather the necessary senate votes.

Pyne said on Sunday he was prepared to compromise on every part of the package to secure the central principle of university deregulation.

“Everything is on the table except the centrepiece of the reform which is deregulation. Now if the government gets deregulation, which is going to be good for universities and students, all the other matters are open to negotiation,” he said.

Pyne continues to try to negotiate with the crossbench, with meetings scheduled with individual senators on Sunday, but his legislation appears to have little chance of passing.

The chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, Catherine Livingstone, has also spoken out about the government’s negotiating tactics.

She told a Universities Australia conference: “How have we come to a point where a government feels it can use assets, publicly funded to the tune of over $2bn as a hostage in a political process; where it is prepared to jeopardise over 1,500 highly skilled research jobs and the continuing operation of 27 national facilities?”

Australia’s chief scientist, Ian Chubb, said last week it was “a pity” the government had linked the two issues, while the Group of Eight universities warned that the imminent expiry of programs under the NCRIS “would cripple breakthrough research”.

The treasurer, Joe Hockey, appeared to hint on Wednesday that the government could consider shifting its stance, when he was asked directly about comments by Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt that NCRIS facilities would have to start letting staff go within weeks.

“Well, it has been raised with myself, with my colleagues, by the minister for education,” Hockey told the ABC on Wednesday.

“It is something that we are looking at. I can’t give you any more commitment than that because it does involve a substantial amount of money and we are trying to work that through, we really are. I can only say, we want to do more in terms of research and we obviously want to support our scientists.”

NCRIS is not specifically mentioned in the higher education bill and senior government figures had suggested privately the threat to research funding may not be carried through, before Pyne’s public restatement of it on Sunday.