Kim Carr says decision to apply ‘national interest’ test creates ‘high level of uncertainty’ for academics

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Labor has blasted the Morrison government for delaying the next rounds of Australian Research Council grants, a move that will see the new “national interest” test for public funding applied to them.

Labor’s industry and innovation spokesman, Kim Carr, has also suggested a delay in announcing the current round of $300m grants could signal an intent to apply the national interest to them as well.

The national interest test was proposed by the education minister, Dan Tehan, after widespread backlash at the revelation the Coalition had blocked $4m of grants in the humanities but left the university sector baffled because major ARC grants schemes already have a “national benefit” test.

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The Group of Eight universities chief executive, Vicki Thomson, told Guardian Australia that the discovery and Indigenous discovery round of grants were due to open on 20 November but have now been delayed to a date not yet announced.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt they have been delayed because the government wants to impose the national interest test to future rounds,” she said.

Labor has also complained that Tehan has not announced the current round for 2019 ARC grants, citing the fact results are normally announced in late October or early November.

After question time on Thursday, Carr said the decision to delay the current round of $300m of grants until February had caused “a high level of uncertainty” to academics who “won’t know whether or not they’re to be employed” until the new year.

Carr told Guardian Australia there was “no other reason for the delay” except that it “gives them time to put the new national interest test together” and apply it to existing applications in the current round.

A spokesman for Tehan told Guardian Australia the minister “is still considering the ARC grants”.

“As previously stated, the national interest test will apply for all future grant rounds that are yet to open,” he said.

On Tuesday the Senate condemned “political interference” in the ARC grant process and called on the minister to explain the reason for refusals.

It ordered Tehan to produce the ARC’s incoming ministerial brief by 9.30am Thursday. The deputy Nationals leader, Bridget McKenzie, responded on Tehan’s behalf, making a public interest immunity claim over the brief on the basis its release would damage “commercial interests” and prejudice relations between the commonwealth and the states.

Carr said the rejection was “not credible” and the government’s refusal to be transparent about the ARC grant process was part of a “comprehensive assault” on the role and autonomy of universities.

In October Senate estimates revealed the former education minister Simon Birmingham had blocked 11 ARC grants in the humanities on topics including Soviet cinema, legal pluralism in Australia and a history of men’s dress.

The decision prompted outrage including from Universities Australia, the Group of Eight universities and the Australian Catholic University, whose vice-chancellor, Greg Craven, expressed “deep dismay” the grants had been overturned for “no apparent reason”.

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Tehan backed Birmingham’s decision and announced a new requirement for academics to explain how their proposed projects will “advance the national interest”.

On Thursday the Greens introduced a Senate bill to strip the minister of the power to block ARC grants. Labor has called for a restoration of the requirement for the minister to give reasons but stopped short of supporting removing the discretion.

The Greens’ education spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, said the parliament needed “to take concrete action to protect academic independence and that means taking politics out and leaving it to the experts”.

“As a former academic, I know that the independence of researchers is of the utmost importance and we now know that this has been massively undermined by political intervention by the Liberal government,” she said. “It is patently clear that politicians simply cannot be trusted to put the interests of the community ahead of their own political agendas.

“The Australian Research Council has a rigorous peer review process that must be trusted to guide research funding.”

On Tuesday Carr told Guardian Australia that he did not support removing the discretion.

He said as minister he had never exercised the power but removing it was “not universally supported in the research community” and ARC recommendations were “not infallible”.