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7 Landsborough Street
The Hon Warren Entsch MP 21 November 2000 Dear Mr Entsch AGC
proposals for geoscience initiatives in the 2001 Budget and funding of the
Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO)
Thank
you very much for meeting with representatives of the Australian Geoscience
Council (AGC) on 2 November, during the Science meets Parliament event. We found
it very valuable to be able to follow up on our 22 June 2000 submission on increasing
the international competitiveness of Australia’s resource industries; and
developing Australia’s science and technology capabilities and infrastructure.
In that letter, we proposed five geoscience initiatives as summarised below: 1.
Develop a ‘National
Geoscience Online’ facility to enable efficient and low cost dissemination
of geoscience information to industrial, research and educational users. 2.
Provide increased funding to improve the continental coverage of
geoscience data sets, including geological, geochemical and geophysical
products. 3.
Restore funding for joint AGSO studies with the States/Territories
and Universities (e.g. the Broken Hill Exploration Initiative), especially
targeting water storages, salinity remediation and mineral exploration. 4.
Establish specialist national geoscience research facilities for
dating geological and environmental materials and for a national palaeomagnetic
facility based either in Sydney or Canberra. 5.
Maintain government funding for Cooperative Research Centres. Most of these national geoscience proposals fall within the
functions of AGSO. We were therefore pleased to learn at our meeting with you,
that the initial budget bids for AGSO contain a significant increase over the
levels of the previous year. You suggested that it may be worth our while
contacting your colleague John Fahey, the Minister for Finance and
Administration, to lend our support to these initiatives. We would be pleased to
follow up on this recommendation. Unfortunately, without knowing the essence
proposals, it is difficult for us to develop strong arguments to support them. We realise that the detailed proposals are ‘Cabinet in
Confidence’ but if some indication of the general thrust could be made
available we would be better armed to provide support. The Australian Geoscience Council represents all major geoscience
Societies and Associations in the country and has a high percentage of industry
participation across a wide spectrum of geoscience technology and geoscience
applications. We are therefore well placed to make considered and representative
assessments of national geoscience funding priorities and initiatives. A particular issue, which was discussed in our meeting of 2 November, is the current role of AFFA in the administration of the nation’s water resources. We strongly believe that because the majority of Australia’s water resources occur underground within our large sedimentary basins, and not in surface reservoirs and drainages, it would be in the national interest for these issues to come under the umbrella of the National Geological Survey, as is the situation in several other countries. Water is undoubtedly Australia’s most important economic resource. The critical issues of discovery, definition, evaluation, protection, and remediation of past misuse of water are primarily geoscientific problems. These require expert knowledge of the character of water-hosting systems, such as porosity, permeability, geochemistry, Earth structure and fluid flow. We believe that the capabilities for such work are best hosted in the National Geological Survey (AGSO), where the skills and advanced techniques developed by petroleum and mineral geoscientists can be applied to ground water resources. We applaud the government’s initiative to invest $0.7 billion to
combat salinity and improve water quality, but are disappointed with the
contents of the published Action Plan. This really outlines objectives rather
than describing priority actions and major projects, and begs the question of
how the plan will eventually be implemented. Finally we would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss
with you important geoscience proposals and specific strategies of immediate relevance to the 2001/2002 Federal Budget.
The AGC looks forward to sustaining mutually rewarding communications with you
and we wish you well in your efforts to rectify the present land access
situation. Yours sincerely David Denham
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