Tony Abbott received a frosty response from scientists after he called on them to lobby Labor and Greens MPs to support the government’s plan for a medical research fund.



Abbott, speaking at the prime minister’s science awards in Canberra on Wednesday night, reiterated a message from his speech at last year’s awards when he said the government should be judged “not by its titles but by its performance”.

“I hope our performance has at least passed muster over the past 12 months,” the prime minister said, to a smattering of applause at the Parliament House awards ceremony.

“That was desultory applause, but at least it was some,” Abbott said, in response to the tepid response from the assembled scientists.

The CSIRO had funding cut by $111m over the next four years in this year’s budget, while the Australian Research Council, which funds much basic science, was hit by a $75m cut.

But the government wants to establish a $20bn medical research future fund, paid for by the proposed $7 GP co-payment.

Abbott said he was keen for scientists to lobby his political opponents, who are broadly against the co-payment.

“This $20bn medical research future fund will ensure that Australia continues to be a world champion of research and innovation,” he said.

“And now that our best scientists and our greatest medical researchers are in this building, I hope you will wear out the carpet putting the case for this fund to my political colleagues in other parties, because you can’t have a fund without funding.”

Abbott said Australia performed well in published scientific research, but lagged behind other nations when it came to commercialising its ideas. The government has formed an advisory council, chaired by Abbott, that will look at ways of better linking scientific discovery with business.

“Of course we value ‘blue sky’ or pure research, we always have and we always will, but we still need much to improve the links between science and business and to better commercialise our ideas,” Abbott said.

“Science is at the heart of this government’s economic action strategy because you cannot separate science from the advancement of our country.”

The prime minister said $9.2bn of funding given to science could get a “better return”, but that scientists were an important part of Australia’s future.

“Do we need more lawyers or do we need more scientists?” Abbott said. “Do we need more politicians or do we need more scientists? I have absolutely no doubt what the answer to those questions would be – so, scientists of Australia, go out and increase.”

Sam Berkovic and Ingrid Scheffer won the $300,000 top prize at the awards for their work in linking epilepsy to genetics.

Scheffer told Guardian Australia that she supported the medical future fund, but not the GP co-payment.

“I’d like to see a smarter, more innovative way of it being funded,” she said. “A medical future fund is fantastic but we should be careful that it doesn’t affect the future of vulnerable people going to the doctor.”

Scheffer said she was concerned that the cuts to science funding would cause Australian scientists to move overseas.

“I’d say there is a lot of room to build science in Australia because we are going to lose our smartest young minds,” she said. “I think it would be crazy to throw our smart people away. People get disenchanted because it’s hard to stay in science when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from or how you’re going to pay rent.

“We need the government to invest in science and we need clear career pathways for our young scientists. Not having a science minister is a problem.

“We need to show how exciting and important science is, and how it improves people’s lives.”