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The moronic member for Hughes, Craig Kelly, gave a speech in which he stated that there should be no funding for research that does not either find a cure for a disease, 'improve our prosperity' or 'improve our lifestyles'. Basically, he wants universities to be patent-making centres for engineering and medicine. Maybe business studies as well. This is, however, the exact opposite of a university.
He spent quite a bit of time listing ARC research and laughing at it. He seems to have not grasped that these grants are incredibly competitive and this research is at international levels.
'A cool $150,000 went into a study of the impact of locally mined silver to make coins in Athens between the years 550 BC and 480 BC.'
Kelly found this self-evidently funny. I, on the other hand, am impressed that someone is doing what universities are meant to do - ie. expanding the pool of human knowledge.
'In another example, a cool $200,000 went to determine what young Australians are learning about sex, love and relationships from the popular media. I would suggest that these are not the type of funding projects that the government should be funding.'
I would suggest that even under his limited and misguided rubric, this would be extremely helpful and likely to 'improve our lifestyles'.
'Under the previous Labor government $253,000 of taxpayers’ money also went to study archaeology in the Central Caucuses. And $444,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent to study a history of advertising industry practices in Australia between 1959 and 1989. Isn’t that the type of study that would be better funded by the advertising industry than by taxpayers?'
In short, no. Any 'research' undertaken by the industry itself would be a hagiography. Serious research would involve criticism of the industry - probably substantial criticism - and is never going to be undertaken by anyone who is not from academia. And again, even under his stupid idea of just funding what is immediately applicable, I can see *huge* popular applications for this knowledge. If you could write a book which talked about, for instance, how women are held up to ridiculous beauty standards, then someone could translate that research into a teaching program which would be invaluable in schools.
Is this man deliberately obtuse or really this pig ignorant? Can he not see that he is basically saying that we should redefine what a university is to mean a TAFE and we should give up on being a country which in any way values education, research or learning.
He spent quite a bit of time listing ARC research and laughing at it. He seems to have not grasped that these grants are incredibly competitive and this research is at international levels.
'A cool $150,000 went into a study of the impact of locally mined silver to make coins in Athens between the years 550 BC and 480 BC.'
Kelly found this self-evidently funny. I, on the other hand, am impressed that someone is doing what universities are meant to do - ie. expanding the pool of human knowledge.
'In another example, a cool $200,000 went to determine what young Australians are learning about sex, love and relationships from the popular media. I would suggest that these are not the type of funding projects that the government should be funding.'
I would suggest that even under his limited and misguided rubric, this would be extremely helpful and likely to 'improve our lifestyles'.
'Under the previous Labor government $253,000 of taxpayers’ money also went to study archaeology in the Central Caucuses. And $444,000 of taxpayers’ money was spent to study a history of advertising industry practices in Australia between 1959 and 1989. Isn’t that the type of study that would be better funded by the advertising industry than by taxpayers?'
In short, no. Any 'research' undertaken by the industry itself would be a hagiography. Serious research would involve criticism of the industry - probably substantial criticism - and is never going to be undertaken by anyone who is not from academia. And again, even under his stupid idea of just funding what is immediately applicable, I can see *huge* popular applications for this knowledge. If you could write a book which talked about, for instance, how women are held up to ridiculous beauty standards, then someone could translate that research into a teaching program which would be invaluable in schools.
Is this man deliberately obtuse or really this pig ignorant? Can he not see that he is basically saying that we should redefine what a university is to mean a TAFE and we should give up on being a country which in any way values education, research or learning.
