Callaghan cuts tough

Sir Ernest Marsden was as instrumental as anybody in setting up the old DSIR, and his argument was that a top quality scientific centre was imperative for an economy progressing into the future. The DSIR had a simple philosophy: it maintained expertise and offered advice and resources for developing industry. In the 1960s it was responsible for setting up geothermal energy. From the 1970s onwards the dream collapsed. I was a scientist at Chemistry Division when Muldoon did his best to starve it of money. Following Muldoon, politicians lost the plot. Marsden’s idea was that if you set up more industries, the government would get more money through taxation and have happier and richer workers. Instead, the politicians changed it to CRIs and restructured Gracefield more than once, each time with the instructions to save money.

The DSIR had instructions never to compete with private science; now apparently Callaghan is instructed to do exactly that, in order to save money. This is the classic example of penny wise, pound foolish. Our politicians simply do not understand the role of science in a modern economy.

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