Australia's national science organisation needs another $175 million to make sure its buildings are up to scratch, the Commission of Audit has found, amid warnings that research funding could be at risk if resources have to be diverted.

A comprehensive review of CSIRO facilities in 2011-12 found 83 per cent of the organisation's more than 1,000 buildings needed significant maintenance to preserve operational capability.

"In addition to budgeted repairs, an additional $175 million in maintenance expenditure is needed over the next 10 years to maintain CSIRO properties to meet external compliance requirements and certification standards," the audit said.

The CSIRO Staff Association says it is concerned about the safety of staff working at some of the sites.

"There's a building at the Floreat site in Western Australia where, as far as we're aware, in October last year some bricks actually fell off the wall of a building," national organiser Paul Girdler said.

"Fortunately we believe it happened on a weekend when no-one was around.

"Not only was there obviously a big problem with that - had people been walking under it on a work day there could have been serious injury - but also it's now taken up to six months for repairs to that wall to be commenced."

Mr Girdler says it is unlikely the organisation will be able to afford the maintenance.

"We've already seen for example that the CSIRO has shrunk in the order of 6 to 7 per cent in the last eight or nine months," he said.

"Staffing numbers have gone down by about 400 [and] we're anticipating they will reduce by a further 300 over the next six months or so."

In a statement, the CSIRO said it was looking to close down some sites and co-locate with other organisations.

"We assessed the condition of our properties and identified that a significant amount of [CSIRO properties] presented a high operational or health and safety risk," the statement said.

"Based on this assessment, we are looking to consolidate sites and buildings in capital cities.

"Without investment into our current property portfolio, the costs of maintaining our facilities will continue to rise [and] this would ultimately mean that funding for science projects would have to be diverted to property projects simply to maintain a safe and compliant work environment for our staff.

"That's why we're now working hard to address our property needs so our science continues to thrive."

Industry should cover some funding: BHP Billiton

But many researchers have flagged concerns about whether science will continue to thrive in Australia.

The world's biggest miner, BHP Billiton, believes industry should look at picking up some of the funding slack.

"I worked very hard to form institutes [when working at BP] where scientists were free to work on problems within a very broad area which they felt were most interesting programs to work on," BHP Billiton chief executive Andrew Mackenzie said.

"So I think there's a number of areas where both in terms of funds and in terms of know-how, industry possesses many of the access points to the solutions of the great challenges of the world - and it needs to be prepared to put its money where its mouth is."

Dr Mackenzie, a former geologist, is concerned about the level of scientific discussion in Parliament.

"I would like to see a greater representation of people with scientific degrees as members of Parliament," he said.

"I think we are very poorly represented often in the debates that happen around Parliament."

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