A FEW years back this Babbage correspondent used to write her missives from a small street café in Vietnam. A basic place, with little on offer besides hot drinks and snacks, the establishment nevertheless maintained an excellent free Wi-Fi connection, a service as ubiquitous in the country as the single cigarettes sold alongside morning ca phe. Australia’s lack of the same basic offering became starkly apparent on every trip home, despite the fact that the country’s Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), a leading research body, invented WIFI. It also developed the first influenza vaccination and polymer banknotes. Such successes may become rarer, however, after cuts to scientific spending were announced this week in Australia’s latest budget.

Joe Hockey, Australia’s treasurer, delivered his first budget on May 13 (allegedly dancing in his office before doing so). CSIRO will see its funding slashed by a total of A$111m ($105m) over four years, an amount that has horrified both scientists and pundits. Exactly which programmes will be lost from the CSIRO is not yet clear, but a tenth of the workforce will see their jobs disappear in line with government plans to shrink the public sector.

Admittedly conditions at the CSIRO were less than rosy even before the new budget blasted into being. Just under a quarter of its staff were on non-ongoing contracts last year, with 9% not to be renewed. More damningly, the organisation was also subject to a hiring freeze.

Perhaps the new cabinet of Tony Abbott, elected prime minister last year, should have set alarm bells ringing before now. Alongside a dearth of women (save the foreign minister Julie Bishop), the grouping also lacks a science minister for the first time since 1931—the year the post was created. Instead the Industry and Education portfolios now share the scientific burden between them. Academics fear that Australian innovation, which has led to the development of the bionic ear, eye and solar cell, will become a thing of the past.

Mr Abbott has freely admitted he is “not a tech-head” when pressed on his party’s plans for internet development. His scepticism over climate change may also have triggered the extreme drop in funding to related initiatives from A$1.25 billion this fiscal year to just A$500m by 2017-18. The Clean Technology Innovation Programme and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency have been cut.

The news is not all bad, however. Other scientific bodies will receive more government money, including a A$20 billion boost for the Medical Research Fund, which will also receive the new A$7 co-payment collected after all medical appointments (previously free for those seeing doctors who bulk billed under government Medicare). Meanwhile A$140m will find its way to the Future Fellowships Fund, which supports the investigations of mid-career scientists.

But a shrinking cash pile for universities, and in particular the research students that attend them, will make it harder for people ever to become scientists. Those wishing to undertake a relevant master’s degree may now have to pay A$3,900 for a privilege that was previously, in many cases, without cost. Meghan Hopper from the Council of Australian Post-Graduate Associations has described the cuts as a "slap in the face". Australia’s scientific community may sting from them for years to come.