CSIRO sackings rumours prompt warnings

Reported plans to sack up to 26 staff from CSIRO's Division of Land and Water have touched off warnings about the organisation's long-term health from Federal Opposition and union sources.

As many as 100 staff could be targeted for forced redundancies across the organisation by the end of the year, claims Labor's Shadow Minister for Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr.

That number is roughly in line with the net average annual loss in permanent staff positions that union sources say CSIRO has suffered over the past six years, which they claim adds up to about 1000.

CSIRO's permanent headcount has fallen by more than 13 per cent in the six years, even as the proportion of staff on short-term contracts grew by more than 21 per cent, according to Carr.

The trend is a sign of the government's pressure on CSIRO to "turn itself, in effect, away from public-good research and into a consultancy company."

Carr said his concerns were "not only with the numbers but with the lack of respect shown to some of this country's leading scientists.

"Rumours [about redundancies] are allowed to run riot for days without talking to the individuals concerned. This is not the way to build an organisation of people committed to the core responsibilities which have made the CSIRO a national icon."

Carr also criticised what he called an "antediluvian attitude which equates projected budget shortfalls to compulsory job cuts."

He said it appeared that researchers' and technicians' jobs were being cut at Land and Water "to prop up a weak and ill-conceived commercialisation strategy."

Even though the government has officially rejected setting external funding targets as a management goal, divisions within CSIRO appear reluctant to abandon them, Carr said.

The Land and Water division has not confirmed the size of the reported cuts. CSIRO Staff Association Secretary Sandy Ross said the fundamental issue facing CSIRO was its "stagnating and declining appropriation base.

"We are concerned the recently-announced redundancies in the Land and Water Division are only the start of a round of redundancies that will go right across the organisation," Ross said.

He labelled the cuts premature because they were initiated in advance of a round of funding-related negotiations whose results will be finalised in the Budget next May. "We are saying don't act in terms of cutting staff until we see what comes out of those talks."

The downward trend was interrupted by a small increase last year, but the staff association claims that pause is turning into a further period of decline.