The CSIRO chief executive has admitted recent cuts to the organisation’s climate research have been handled badly, conceding he wasn’t very good at communications or politics.
In another gruelling Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Dr Larry Marshall confirmed about 75 researchers in the oceans and atmosphere business unit would lose their jobs in a revamped, smaller restructure – down from about 110 announced to widespread derision in February.
However, Marshall denied the decision to establish a small climate research centre in Hobart was politically motivated.
“I’ll grant you I’m not very good at communications and I’m not very good at politics and I think that’s been shown quite clearly,” Marshall told senators.
He also acknowledged the vast external pressure on the organisation to step back from its initial cuts but said he thought the CSIRO would have come to the new strategy regardless.
“I guess I’d like to believe that CSIRO’s own process would have come to this solution anyway,” Marshall said. “Not to say the external pressure didn’t help.”
Documents provided to the Senate reveal the CSIRO initially planned to cut 96 climate researchers but Dr Alex Wonhas, executive director of environment, energy and resources, told the committee only 40 climate scientists would lose their job under the new arrangement.
Of the remaining cuts, there would be about 30 from the Canberra team, between 10 and 15 from Melbourne and about 15 from Hobart, the executives told the committee.
Earlier in the week it was announced the CSIRO would set up a climate research centre in Hobart that would secure funding for 40 climate scientists for 10 years.
Emails from the executive team revealed to the Senate show CSIRO was aware of the political impact of job losses in Hobart, and the director of the oceans and atmosphere unit, Dr Ken Lee, said he would work on ways to “minimise impacts on Hobart”.
A senior climate scientist at CSIRO told Guardian Australia the decision to base the program in Hobart was political, since of the 40 scientists that would be employed by the centre it was likely about 30 of them were based in Melbourne.
But Marshall denied it had anything to do with politics. “Hobart was just the obvious choice given what we already have there, the infrastructure we have there, the people we have there,” he said. “It was just the clear choice.”
The committee hearing was part of a Greens-Labor inquiry into government budget cuts, which has focused recently on the CSIRO cuts to climate science. Executives have said the cuts were at least partly a result of government funding for climate research being cut in the last budget.
