{"id":40825,"date":"2018-11-08T12:58:47","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T02:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=40825"},"modified":"2018-11-08T12:58:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T02:58:47","slug":"political-censorship-in-australian-research-processes-towards-authoritarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billmitchell.org\/blog\/?p=40825","title":{"rendered":"Political censorship in Australian research processes – towards authoritarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tRegular readers will know that I place great value in the disciplines we broadly describe as the Humanities. An understanding of knowledge that history, language, philosophy, geography, politics, sociology, anthropology, music, drama, classical studies and the like is essential if we are to advance societies and avoid the mindless descent into tribalism and authoritarianism. Last month, two things were revealed. First, the Federal Minister for Education vetoed successful grant applications for funding under the Australian Research Council processes, effectively politicising the process. He took exception to the topics. His decision was only revealed months later through interrogations during a Senate Estimates hearing. Second, an Australian university released a research report it had commissioned – The Value of the Humanities<\/a> – which sought to articulate “the value of the Humanities to students thinking about their education and career options and to businesses faced with hiring choices”. It shows the immense value that teaching and research in the Humanities brings to employers, individuals and society in general. It makes the Federal minister look like a fool, although that was not its intent. A fool and one who is deeply insecure about allowing knowledge to proliferate. The latter is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime.
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Some background blog posts I have written (among others) include:<\/p>\n

1. I feel good knowing there are libraries full of books<\/a> (October 29, 2010).<\/p>\n

2. Education – a vehicle for class division<\/a> (November 23, 2010).<\/p>\n

3. Technocrats move over, we need to read some books<\/a> (June 13, 2012).<\/p>\n

4. The humanities is necessary but not sufficient for social transformation<\/a> (December 18, 2012).<\/p>\n

5. We need more artists and fewer entrepreneurs<\/a> (January 10, 2013).<\/p>\n

Research funding scandal<\/h2>\n

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the national competitive funding agency which is funded by the Federal government and applications are rigourously peer-reviewed.<\/p>\n

The success rate is low and the grants give high status on the recipients as a consequence. Universities love researchers who get these grants because apart from the individual status, the Federal government then adds further funding per dollar awarded.<\/p>\n

I have long been a reviewer and have been systematically successful over my career in gaining these grants (mostly in the field of econometrics, spatial analysis and regional studies). The funding has allowed me to employ many people and keep my research centre – Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE)<\/a> – going since 1998.<\/p>\n

The protocol is that while the Federal Minister of Education signs off on the successful grants, he\/she never intervenes in the independent decision-making organised and administered by the ARC.<\/p>\n

However, there have been known but rare cases where a Minister has vetoed grant applications.<\/p>\n

The former conservative education minister Brendan Nelson vetoed humanities grants for the 2006 funding round. You can read about that scandal in this article – Research floored by full Nelson<\/a> (November 16, 2005).<\/p>\n

Around that time, the right-wing commentators were running the line that “the ARC had fallen prey to “Marxists”, “leftists” and “peek-in-your-pants researchers fixated on gender or race”.<\/p>\n

The Federal minister bowed to the pressure and secretly vetoed several grants in Humanities. Some of them were studies of sexuality.<\/p>\n

It was clearly politicising the process – vetting risque Humanities – out of the process.<\/p>\n

Of course, the risque nature of some research in those disciplines is why they are so interesting and challenging. It is why they broaden our humanity and increase tolerance and understanding of difficult issues.<\/p>\n

But like Hitler burnt the books that made him insecure, the conservatives were intent on sanitising which research gets funded in Australia.<\/p>\n

This scandal led the next government (Labor) to introduce a protocol that required the Minister to make “a special declaration so the decision was public” (Source<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But the politicisation of our research funding process is back.<\/p>\n

In the current round, a scandal has broken out because the conservative Federal Minister of Education has once again secretly vetoed successful ARC grant applications.<\/p>\n

The Hansard for the Education and Employment Committee – Senate Estimates Hearing, October 25, 2018<\/a> – reveals that the Minister rejected 11 successful grant applications comprising more than $A4 million.<\/p>\n

The CEO of the ARC, Professor Sue Thomas was grilled by the Federal Senate Committee and this is what transpired (discussion and revelations start on Page 126 of the Hansard):<\/p>\n

1. Eleven grants (6 general Discovery, 3 Early Career and 2 Future Fellowships) valued at more than $A4 million, that had been deemed worthy of funding by the independent process, were rejected by the Minister.<\/p>\n

2. Most were from the Humanities and their titles were:<\/p>\n