I’m all in favour of embryo research, but only if the parents give consent. It is shameful that Annette King nationalised their embryos to allow embryos to be stored without parental consent.

Lobbyists Scam Health Budget
Amongst the apparent beneficiaries of yesterday’s Budget was an outfit called the Health Research Council, originally established to award grants for valuable scientific research in the health sector. In the last financial year it received nearly $70million from the nation’s taxpayers. And yesterday Dr Cullen announced that health research would be boosted by $4 million. The Council is part of a wider portfolio of science funding totalling $550 million, accorded critical review in previous editions of this newsletter. And this week it is the turn of the Health Research Council to receive such constructive scrutiny.

Members of the Health Research Council are appointed on the advice of the Minister of Health. The primary function of the Council, according to S6 of the Health Research Council Act is “to advise the Minister on national health research policy…” So the Council is, through the Minister, responsible to Parliament and it is funded through an appropriation granted by Parliament.

Last year the Health Research Council decided to approve a grant of $701,000 to a group of researchers from the Wellington School of Medicine, a branch of Otago University, to study “policymaking to reduce smoking around children.” The fact that said group of researchers might accurately be described as anti-tobacco activists is underlined by the fact that the application discloses over $1.8 million in grants to members of the group for tobacco-related research over the previous three years.

The summary makes clear what the research will actually involve: “Smokefree policies can be expanded by government policies,” we are told. “So as to help advocates, this research aims to determine obstacles/opportunities within policy processes, for interventions appropriate to specific population groups.”

The subsequent detail makes it clear what the thrust of the research involves: “recorded face to face anonymous transcribed interviews will be conducted with at least 55 past/current politicians…” In addition to researching “policy statements, official advice and party policies,” the project will include “searches for relevant voting records and statements by politicians during the period from 1996 to the present.” All of this, a bargain at $701,000.

So it works like this: a Research Council that is being funded by Parliament to provide quality research for Parliament in the area of health science is instead spending that money researching the Members of Parliament themselves, their speeches, their advisors and their voting records. And the purpose of this exercise is not to come up with new scientific discoveries that might benefit the health sector, but, in their own words, “to help advocates.”

So taxpayers’ money that should be advancing the health of New Zealanders by funding new scientific breakthroughs is instead funding the preparation of resource material for lobbyists about the Members of Parliament who gave them the money in the first place. Which will presumably be useful because those same lobbyists will also be able to lobby for increased health science funding which can then be diverted into further lobbying. Which of course, is what our foolish Government has just done to the tune of $4 million a year. Isn’t that just the scam of the century?

So basically this was a $700,000 grant paid to anti-smoking activists for them to research on how they can be more successful activists!!

I’d like to get a grant from the Health Research Council so I can interview people on how I could be a better blogger!

There have been other examples in the past of how the Government funds lobby groups to lobby Parliament. It is quite simply wrong. Lobby groups should not be taxpayer funded for their lobbying. It is fine to be funded for other activities but it is the thin end of a corruption wedge to have the Government fund lobbying of MPs.

The Government’s gimmicky “Fast Forward Fund” science announcement has placed the Election Year spotlight on the whole area of science research and development.  There will now be greater interest in the National Party’s response closer to the election.  But what a pity that more focus has not been given to ensuring that we get value for money out of the existing budget.

The word ‘science’ will no doubt conjure up pictures of pasty-looking individuals in white coats shuffling around laboratories with Bunsen burners and test tubes. But a quick look at some of the projects currently being funded out of the Science/Research budget suggests that such is not the case.

Take, for example, a $96,000 grant for a study of Boganology.  No, this is apparently not a poorly selected term for some exciting new microbial organism. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a study of bogans. That will really get our export industries humming.

Then there’s the interesting little number entitled “More than Bricks and Mortar,” a study of social networks amongst homeless people.  All of that for a modest $795,000 (no, no typographical error – $795,000 out of the SCIENCE fund).

And how about a study of “The impact of economic shocks on the well-being of New Zealanders”.  A snip at $600,000.  All to ascertain the previously unknown and obviously elusive truth that economic shocks are bad for people’s well-being.

But for studies into the blindingly obvious the prize would have to be awarded to the report “How do positive events lead to greater happiness and wellbeing?” A modest $600,000 experiment that clearly involved giving someone a $600,000 grant and checking that he or she was very very happy indeed.

There is, of course, the usual display of rampant political correctness: a $427,000 grant for a “Dictionary of Loanwords in the Maori Language Newspapers”.  A $495,000 study of “The Impact of Sound Change on the Rhythm of Maori”.  And a $955,000 study “Ecosystem Services Benefits in Terrestrial Ecosystems for Iwi”, a report that will obviously shoot New Zealand immediately to the international forefront in this critical area of scientific endeavour.

That’s right folks. This is cash out of the SCIENCE budget we are talking about here.  Cash that has been confiscated from taxpayers under the pretence of investing it in maintaining world leadership in our primary industries.  Makes you yearn for a few more test tubes and Bunsen burners, doesn’t it?

I hope the good farmers of NZ check carefully what the Fast Forward Fund will actually be spent on!

Instead, the government shelved the report, and has now unveiled Fast Forward, the latest in its many, shifting, inadequately executed attempts at economic transformation. It is a big slug of money with no under-pinning strategic plan.

Given the primary sector’s lack of strategic vision, there is every danger that users of the Fast Forward fund will keep dragging it back to incremental projects that play to the sector’s historic focus on commodities.

And there are plenty of other risks too, such as a dominance of the government funding by dairying in general and Fonterra specifically, of tensions between competing companies and of political uncertainty.

I’ve also heard from industry sources, that dairy will be a dominant funder, and that there is no way in hell they will be paying for research in non dairy areas, as the Government has been suggesting.

NZPA this morning quote Jim Anderton:

He acknowledged that due to its gradual buildup the fund might only spend $20m in its first year, matched by $20m from industry.

Wow that is so less sexy than $2 billion. Hell it is 2% of it.

The Government should release the full capital and operating budgets for each of the 15 years it says it will exist for, rather than hide behind press releases.

The funding is expected to be matched by industry contributions which is sensible.

I’ve heard on the grapevine that official advice to the Government was not to put the money into a dedicated capital fund, as this sort of jam jar approach removes the ability of Governments to consider quality of investment in future. Some OIAs will be revealing.

Also the rather unusual references to food and pastoral is because the Greens are campaigning against the Dairy Industry as being polluters, so they left Dairy off the propoganda.

Also worth noting that a ballpark estimate of *current* research and development industry funding is $130 million – via DairyNZ, Meat & Wool NZ, Fonterra etc. So this package, while very welcome, should be seen in context of current investment.

As I said this morning – greater R&D can make a real difference to NZ’s productivity and economic growth.  So the announcement is a good one, even though it should have been done ages ago, rather than wait for the election campaign.

Details are not yet known, but on the face of it investing in research is a good thing to do. That is potentially a useful contributor to increasing productivity and economic growth.

One beneficial outcome would be research which leads the way to have less methane emissions in the diary industry, as this would reduce out Kyoto liability.  One has to ask of course why didn’t the Government establish this research oh around seven or eight years ago when it confirmed Kyoto, instead of a few months before its third term ends.

The other thing which isn’t clear to me, is why it needs to be a dedicated fund, rather than merely an increase in annual funding.  The simple answer is the political one – because $500 million into a capital fund sounds far more sexy than announcing and extra $35 million a year in research funding. So when you hear the big numbers, remember that is capital, not expenditure.

Cullen also is probably desperately trying to reduce the cash surplus, so he can attack National’s tax cuts as unaffordable, while his own tax cuts will magically be affordable and non-inflationary