Binoy Kampmark, CSIRO cuts show science still treated as a budget cost, The Mandarin, 28 November 2025
The CSIRO cull has put fresh attention on decades of real-term funding decline and the pressure to fit research into narrow policy goals.
Things have been rocky at Australia’s primary scientific research body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
On November 18, the agency confirmed 350 research redundancies following a staff and union meeting. This heralds the largest cull of permanent researchers since pandemic funding under the four-year “COVID safety measure” concluded. (818 temporary and support service positions have already been shed, resulting in purported savings of $120 million.) There was little surprise in the remarks by CSIRO Staff Association secretary Susan Tonks, who described the occasion as “a sad day for publicly funded science”.