Thread by @ARC_Tracker

"But…but…the Minister *must* have oversight of education spending!"

This 👆 is often the reply when anyone argues to remove veto powers over individual ARC grants.

It really shouldn't need saying, but "oversight" does not equal micro-managerial control.

Want an example? 🧵👇

Imagine the Minister had veto power over individual *PhD scholarships*.

Preposterous! Ridiculous! Massive over-reach! Political interference! Academic freedom!

Yep, absolutely💯

But that's *totally* different to individual ARC grants, right?

Is it?

The Government funds PhD scholarships via the Research Training Program.

These provide…🥁…$29k pa for 3.5 years.

I know, right? A staggeringly, insultingly, pitifully minuscule poverty wage.

Does the Minister sign off on each one? Of course not.

There's no Ministerial veto in the Higher Education Support Act that funds PhD scholarships.

It would be nuts if there were!

But …*clutches pearls*… where's "Ministerial oversight"?🥺🥺🥺

Simple!

The Act just places various "quality & accountability requirements" on unis to receive & allocate funds to projects & students.

Yep, the unis determine the best projects/students to spend tax-payer money on without the Minister getting directly involved!

😱😱😱🤯🤯🤯

"Oh, but it's such a tiny amount of money."

Yep. Only $100k per PhD scholarship.

But … hang on … just a second …

The average ARC #DiscoveryProjects grant is only ~$400k, just ~4 times more than a PhD scholarship.

Even the biggest ARC grants are very small by Ministerial standards.

Why would the Minister get involved in *individual* grants this small?

Exactly.

The ARC should approve ARC grants.

It's independent & has detailed, rigorous processes to determine the best projects to fund, within policies & rules set out by Government.

That the Minister can veto *individual* outcomes of the process they've set up is just plain ludicrous.

Even greatly streamlining the ARC's process for ranking proposals would be still be rigorous enough for determining which grants to fund, even if the scale of funding was dramatically increased.

If a Minister wants control over individual grants, it's political, not "oversight".

And remember, there's more important & fundamental reasons for removing the Minister's veto power, well beyond the simple, practical example above – see other 🧵👇

https://twitter.com/ARC_Tracker/status/1485441957048762370?s=20&t=DjKY0jFuFh89m4kL9A81dg

Removing Ministerial veto power would reflect ARC's independence & due-diligence processes, just as universities are entrusted with a similar scale of PhD project funding.

We'd never accept PhD project vetoes. We shouldn't accept ARC vetos either.

@tanya_plibersek @ALeighMP