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| Scientists analyse samples in a laboratory on board the CSIRO-run RV Investigator. Photo: Pete Harmsen |
The CSIRO divisions to bear the brunt of the planned staffing cuts are being told to increase their revenue from external sources in coming years and count the redundancy costs against those targets.
Fairfax Media can reveal that the Oceans and Atmosphere division, which is slated to lose about one-fifth of its staff, will be expected to increase total revenue from external sources from about $42 million in 2015-16 to about $44 million by 2019-2020.
The division is home to climate modelling and monitoring teams that are likely to lose about half their 140 staff, a move that has drawn criticism from around the world.
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| Larry Marshall, CEO of the CSIRO, wants the organisation to be more profitable. Photo: Daniel Munoz |
Kenneth Lee, director of the Oceans and Atmosphere division, told staff on Monday that he hoped "corporate" would pay for at least some of the redundancies.
Insiders have told Fairfax Media that the cost of the redundancies for the Oceans and Atmosphere division is about $13 million, with more than two-thirds of the sum to be carried by the division.
"It's very disturbing," Michael Borgas, president of CSIRO's Staff Association, said. "It means for those who are carrying on [after the cuts] that you're got a big debt to start with, and that's pretty dispiriting."
More to come?
Labor and the Greens said the strategy employed by CSIRO points to further job cuts when the depleted units failed to deliver rising returns.
"What is becoming clear is that the CSIRO management is trying to use business principles to disrupt the science-based priorities of the CSIRO," Shadow Industry Minister Kim Carr said.
"CSIRO divisions will be hit even harder if they are forced to fund the redundancies of scientists and researchers out of their own budgets," Senator Carr said. "This will just be a double whack for CSIRO research."
Greens Senator Larissa Waters said the drive to make shrinking staff lift earnings would shift the onus of research on to shorter term projects that may be less critical for the nation.
"The blinkered focus on profit making is dangerous and unscientific," the deputy Greens leader said.
"Asking our world-class climate scientists to do even more work for corporations, like the oil and gas industry, raises serious questions about the CSIRO's institutional integrity," Senator Waters said, referring to plans by the organisation to help firms to improve their "social licence".
'Detailed' planning
The CSIRO declined to comment on how the redundancies would be funded nor how divisions could expand the earnings they make from customers with fewer staff.
"We are now conducting our detailed budget planning covering all revenue and expenditure and taking into account the recent decisions, as we routinely do at this time of the budget cycle," a spokesman said.
A spokesman for Science Minister Christopher Pyne said the CSIRO was an independent statutory agency. The plan to recover the 350 job losses – including also from the Land and Water, Data61 and manufacturing divisions - by an equal number of new hires in other more promising sectors, he said.
A senior researcher in the Land and Water division, which also faces the loss of 100 full-time positions, said the lack of funds to pay for redundancies "is a massive blow to the viability of Oceans and Atmosphere and Land & Water".
"Land and Water came up $4 million short on external earnings targets last year," the scientist said. "If Corporate imposes this bill as well as external earnings targets, then there will be another round of massive staff cuts next financial year."
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