Keith Melville

One of the last acts of Judith Collins as Science Minister and as MP was to change the focus of Government research to stop the financing of non-science-based projects.

She explained that she wanted government research funds to be science-focused with clear outcomes for the wider community.

That means many soft social science and some mataraunga Māori research proposals will not be approved.

A new body with a uniform approach is being established to take over from government funding agencies such as the Marsden Fund and MBIE.

Although Collins did not explain in any detail the reasons behind her decision, they seem to be part of cost-cutting measures for the economy’s recovery from the spending binge of the previous government. The move has left the New Zealand academic world, Pakeha and Māori in a festering stew.

One of our own local academics, Dr Mawera Karetai, alerted Beacon readers to the issue last Friday when she wrote an opinion commentary claiming the Government’s cuts to social science were a threat to democracy, Defunding social science threatens democracy, Beacon, May 29.

As one with ideals based on democratic traditions and a keen interest in the social sciences such as politics and history, I was keen to read Dr Karetai’s comments.

I half expected to read a well-researched essay explaining her opposition to the Collins decision point by point. Instead, I read some politically charged comments, one of which was left-wing propaganda.

As I read those assertions, I realised the Collins’ cuts might also be aimed at protecting our democracy from wasteful exploitation and excesses such as the $4 million granted by MBIE for research into playing recorded whale songs to sick kauri trees in an attempt to cure them of die-back disease.

As incredible as that might seem, that was a bona fide project approved by the MBIE bureaucrats and funded by us taxpayers. It was uncovered by the Taxpayers Union through a request under the Official Information Act.

In condemning the Luxon Government for changing the Marsden Fund grant criteria, Dr Karetai makes no mention of any particular reason for her opposition to the changes, just that the cuts would deny us the benefit of research no longer funded.

The $4 million grant for the fanciful research into kauri die-back has largely been ignored by mainstream media, possibly because it seemed so incredulous and also because of woke sensitivity towards an issue involving race relations. But just imagine the public anger if Government funds were directed to a study of the tooth fairy myth or to test the veracity of astronomy and the horoscope.

Dr Karetai complains that in changing the Marsden Fund criteria the Luxon Government has also cut public service budgets (true), restored tax advantages to landlords (which is left wing propaganda and far from the truth), and repealed what she says is world-leading smokefree legislation (that is partly true but she omits to mention that that legislation has encouraged a cigarette black market of huge proportions).

When you consider we have people in dirty clothes, perhaps with mental health issues, searching the gutters for cigarette butts in downtown Whakatāne first thing in the morning, and a water supply in Rūātoki that doesn’t work properly, you know that something is badly wrong with the bureaucracy when they can stump up $4 million for a far-fetched whale song project leading nowhere.