Attorney general attacks ‘illogic’ of Labor’s opposition to cuts and says taxpayers’ money would be better spent elsewhere

George Brandis says climate science not settled, but CSIRO should act as if it is

The attorney general, George Brandis, has mounted a bizarre defence of the Turnbull government’s funding cuts to the CSIRO, saying there is no need to keep funding climate science if the science of climate change is settled – but adding that he personally doesn’t believe it is settled.

Brandis said the science body’s decision to cut funding for its scientists, who have produced vital climate science research – in response to the former Abbott government’s cuts to the CSIRO in 2014 – is what it ought to do if it believes climate change is real.



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He said Labor senators who think the science of climate change is settled should support the cuts, not oppose them.

“If the science is settled, why do we need research scientists to continue inquiring into the settled science?” Brandis said on Tuesday.

“Wouldn’t it be a much more useful allocation of taxpayers’ money and research capacity within CSIRO to allocate its resources to an area where the science isn’t settled?”

The attorney general’s argument is similar to that used by the CSIRO chief executive, Larry Marshall, who said in an email to staff in February that further work on climate change would be reduced because climate change had been established.

The CSIRO is currently cutting hundreds of jobs in its oceans and atmosphere division, and its land and water division, according to according to reports.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and Marshall have been heavily criticised by global climate scientists for allowing those cuts to go ahead.

Brandis – who spent more than $15,000 of taxpayer’s money to build a new bookshelf in his parliament house office in 2014 – said he did not believe that the science of climate change was settled but he knew how to follow a logical argument.

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He said it would be a better use of taxpayers’ money to divert climate science funding elsewhere.

“It doesn’t seem to me that the science is settled at all but I’m not a scientist,” he said. “I’m agnostic, really, on that question. But I can follow a logical argument.

“I am simply challenging the illogic of the proposition being advanced by the Labor party who say, on the one hand, that the science is settled but, on the other hand, say it is a disgraceful thing that we should make adjustments to our premier public sector scientific research agency that would reflect the fact that the science is settled.”

The CSIRO has had budget cuts from successive governments, including $110m in the Abbott government’s first budget in 2014.

Late last year, the heads of its divisions were told to find millions in savings to support its funding shortfall.