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back to article SKA under budget cloud in the Great Oz Science Brain Drain

In the midst of swingeing cuts to scientific research in Australia, the Square Kilometre Array project has emerged as a possible victim of the 2014 federal budget. Among the minutiae to emerge from the budget papers is this: SKA funding is only committed for another two years. Australia won the right to host the low-frequency …

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  1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Ironically

    When Oz and SA were competing for the site there was a lot of thinly veiled statements about the need for "stability and reliable organisation and government" in the choice.

    Generally the people drafting these treaties have been caught like this before and there will be a Concorde Clause - so Oz science will end up paying for it's end even if it doesn't build it.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Please

    First chance we get, can we make this government single term only?

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    1. dan1980
      Reply Icon

      Re: Please

      I'll be there . . .

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      1. LaeMing
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        Unhappy

        Re: Please

        Remember the current government didn't really win the last election. The previous one lost it*. Yes there is a difference!

        * and ther really deserved to. Just a pity there was nothing to genuinely replace them with.

        I imagine (hope) by the next election, the other lot will have got their act back together enough to again be convincingly be the least-worst-party available at the polls.

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  3. dan1980

    It's funny* when you hear politicians after some local industry has shut up shop or off-shored - they always talk about 'high tech' and 'high value' jobs, saying that we are looking to build a future around those types of industries.

    And yet, they consistently de-prioritise the very things that would boost jobs in that apparently desirable sector.

    I don't mean to be partisan but Tony Abbott has undermined this much-talked about tech sector boost at both ends - by cutting funding and abolishing programmes in education and by scrapping, cutting and de-funding numerous initiatives, bodies, policies and funds that were setup to generate these 'high tech' jobs.

    In other words, he has made it harder to get these tech skills and harder for those with them to get jobs.

    * - Not actually 'funny'.

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    1. LaeMing
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      Megaphone

      The only tech the average politician can understand or support is self-driven colonoscopies for the rich. Without the $7 door charge.

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    2. Mort
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      Unhappy

      What use is tech?

      Tony has no interest in tech. He would like to "liberate" as many people as possible from "science" so he can have more people to build his roads and dig up dirt. Don't need to know about tech to operate a shovel.

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  4. Medixstiff

    Any truth to the rumour?

    That there's a heap of ex-CSIRO staff working on "Project Payback". It has something to do with pulling objects from space down onto Canberra.

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    1. Martin Budden Silver badge
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      Flame

      Re: Any truth to the rumour?

      I bloody well hope not, I live here! And so do many CSIRO staff, so it's unlikely they will drop space objects onto their own heads.

      Can I also point out that of the 380,000+ people who call Canberra home, only four are actually federal politicians! All the other federal politicians live across the rest of Australia and only visit Canberra occasionally for parliamentary sitting days (about 70-ish days each year). It really pisses me off when people bad-mouth Canberra as if we are *all* federal politicians: 99.999% of us are not. And no, most of us don't even work for the pollies either.

      Rant over.

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      1. Robert Heffernan
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        Megaphone

        Re: Re: Any truth to the rumour?

        So when all the federal politicians ARE up in Canberra carrying on with their Bullshit, that makes you guys the front line.

        Why aren't you all standing on the lawns of Parliament house with the Placards, Sticks, Stones and Pitchforks, ready to show these idiots who they really work for?

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        1. Martin Budden Silver badge
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          Re: Any truth to the rumour?

          You mean like this?

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      2. Mort
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        Re: Any truth to the rumour?

        Yeah, living in Canberra is bad enough without having extra political slurs piled on top.

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  5. Scroticus Canis
    Unhappy

    So from star gazing to navel gazing

    Probably the most important new observatory being planned and developed to help work out where it all started and where it's going.

    Bet your bottom dollar the South African end is entirely funded from foreign sources as the ANC government certainly didn't; can't even keep the electricity supply going or the water safe to drink.

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  6. southen bastard

    theres sicance in oz?

    we just train them and they go os to make some money and get away from hex

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  7. Woza
    FAIL

    Don't blame me

    I voted for Kodos.

    (Icon refers to governments past, present and very likely future)

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