Posts by Bart Janssen
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"I'm not prepared to send people to a destination that I'm not prepared to come myself."
I thought that was one of the more stupid things to dribble out of Mr Key.
Sending a suit wearing desk riding executive into that environment is quite different from sending a combat trained soldier. The whole point of the training the soldiers receive is so that they don't get themselves into trouble, or worse put their colleagues at risk as a result of their own ignorance.
A real leader would have pointed out that showboating photo opportunities only put those soldiers at greater risk and the responsible thing would have been to leave them to do the task they were trained for ... but that wouldn't have got him on the news.
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"Well stuff you then, if you won't play fair we'll do it our own way."
That's what puzzles me. The stuff you response is useless and counterproductive.
Tuhoe have avoided that path and continued the long slow process of considered negotiation (with the exception of the clowns). They have been very patient and measured in the way they have progressed towards their goals. In that light is seems odd they would package, what appear to me to be, two different concepts in one deal.
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[Screams faintly as Giant Big Pile of Poo blots out sun.]
It'll be good for the veges.
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Seriously though, the mountain peaks in what became the centre piece of the Tongariro National Park were gifted to the Crown by Te Heu Heu of Ngati Tuwharetoa on the condition that they were protected.
What's the problem with doing a similar thing but the other way round?No Problem at all. It's a great idea and should happen ASAP.
Tactically I'm not sure why Tuhoe conflated this simple fair and reasonable idea with their desire for sovereignty. The two goals are separate and I think it is the latter idea that creates more disquiet.
It may be that I don't really understand what they mean by sovereignty but for me it feels like dividing the people and nation that is New Zealand and that I feel is wrong. But as I say I may just not really get what they mean.
But as for the first idea of giving stewardship and ownership of the Tuhoe lands back to them, I have have no problems with it.
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alarming clowns
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We shouldn't give our conservation lands to Maori.
But they gave their lands as gifts to conservation.
The point seems to be that whether we define that land as conservation land now or whether we intensively use it for farming or forestry or whatever, that land was never ours (the government's) in the first place.
As for splitting Tuhoe off into a separate nation, I'd be really disappointed if we ever went that way. I'd like to hope that all New Zealanders can agree to be one nation.
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Bruce we are just going to disagree on a bunch of things I think. I think your numbers for overheads are way too low, either there is something you are not counting or our accountants have it completely wrong as do those in the universities.
As for the other countries the history of funding and development in the US is pretty well covered. Your reading of it obviously differs from mine.
This point I will address
Perhaps this is offensive, but the message I got from your post was that only certain classes of scientists can lead a major recovery, and money should go to them. I disagree.
I'm sorry that was not the intent of my post. What I wanted to say is that in New Zealand we now have so little discovery science funding that we no longer generate sufficient novel ideas to progress fast enough. Over the past 20 years most of the government funding has been shifted to product development much of it dictated by the industries. Even so called basic funding from FRST required a path to market for the product.
Good R&D investment has a balance of discovery and development. In New Zealand we have pretty much abandoned discovery and committed everything to development of products.
That hasn't worked well. I believe we desperately need to shift the balance back to discovery and fund more projects based solely on the quality of science. Marsden's are a good model and a good example of the value of that kind of research.
That does not mean the product development isn't important or that those people doing product development are not valuable. If I led you to believe that I am sorry that was not my intent.
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Most firms I've worked for, or have been associated with, have factors of 1.5 - 3, even when expensive equipment is used. Factors of 3 - 5+ are more typical of high-thoughput QC and production laboratories, who usually also pay technician wages.
Most firms don’t factor in the cost of their administrative and senior management teams. For CRIs, research funding pays for everyone from the person answering the phones to the person collecting data. You don’t see that in business because it is expected that admin and management etc are paid for by the product sales. In many overseas institutes staff salaries are assumed to be paid for by the institute and not included in the number. New Zealand is a little different in the way we full cost every researcher.
Again it isn’t that we need millions to pay a salary for top talent it is that you need that much to sustain the research programme they want to establish.
As an aside I think we are describing top talent slightly differently. from listening to Professor Gluckman and my own experience the top talent referred to are the really exceptional people. In any field there may be a dozen worldwide. Professor Gluckman’s comment is we might currently have 5 in New Zealand and we need more.
What you are describing, I think, are the good scientists we know. We can do great work if we team up and have the funding but we know in our hearts that there is another level of quality above us who do work that is special. Like it or not we need those people involved in New Zealand science.
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Bruce
You make good arguments. The problem I have is that those are the same arguments that were made 20 years ago when we shifted from a model of “keeping scientists off the streets” to a model of funding projects that bean counters believed would result in “benefit to New Zealand” ie almost always measured as money.At that time it was a novel model for New Zealand even though it wasn’t that novel worldwide. Over the last 20 years we’ve demonstrated in New Zealand that such a model reduces scientific productivity. The biggest products coming out in that period derived from research done by scientists “kept off the streets” in the 70s and 80s.
Your implication that scientists kept off the streets are unproductive is not supported by fact and really is simply an insult to the people and work that led to those same products lauded in the government’s latest paper on science.
Taxpayers need good value from their investment, but if you get bad value by demanding a product in 10 years and you get good value by accepting that many projects reveal their value in 20-50 years then, as many many countries have proven, it is much better value to the taxpayers to fund long term science. It is of course no value to the politicians who need to be elected next year or the bureaucrats who want to justify a pay rise next year.
CRI researchers cost the same as university researchers and industry researchers. the number sits between $300k and $400k per researcher. I hate that fact but I can’t change the accounting that turns my salary plus bench costs into that number. Pretending it shouldn’t be that high doesn’t help anyone.
I agree when companies invest in R&D they have very clear timelines. I appreciate the imperatives and understand their position. It is appropriate for business investment. My point is that government investment must fill the gap left by business investment. Government investment must fund long term (decades) research based on quality simply because business will never do that.
I think I can see what the government is trying to do with this money and believe me I hope it will work. My point is that this is simply more of what has been done over the last 20-30 years. yet more transfer of government investment from discovery and idea generating science into product development. Both are important but after the FRST era we simply are not doing enough discovery science to sustain research productivity.
It is of course the politician’s decision. I personally don’t believe it is the right one.
One comment I want to highlight
Many of the top scientists I've met have come to NZ for lifestyle + career, often decades ago, but some even in the last few years. We don't have to pay million dollar salaries.
Yes it’s true we do get very good scientists coming to New Zealand, I know quite a few of them and I respect their talents and appreciate their choice, however, they all could do better science elsewhere in the world. But would you make the same argument about CEOs ie we should just pay them $150k and expect good CEOs to come to NZ because of the lifestyle? Or good bureaucrats? That we have such good scientists working in New Zealand is a tremendous credit to their dedication to our country. But it does not mean we get the best and it does not mean we get the best in the fields we want the most. No scientist expects a million dollar salary, the complaint is that we don’t have enough money to properly fund teams for those really great people we want and need. Yes their salary will be good but nothing like the CEOs, it is the team and equipment and those other costs that we fail on in New Zealand and that is why it is much harder to recruit top talent.
Argh Lucy said that bit better :)
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Paul
Trying to bait the Science advisor to the PM into criticising a National Budget is kind of dumb.
Attacking Professor Gluckman personally because he is talking to a National party PM (which is my reading of Spout’s post) is pretty low.
Professor Gluckman can’t criticize the Budget because if he does then he stops having any influence with the PM.I may not like the way this money has been handed out but I’m damn glad there is any money at all. And having a scientist, even if he isn’t a perfect one (sheesh who is) have the ear of the PM is freaking amazing.
As for the reason the government is giving money to businesses to use for R&D my hope is that the intention is to get them addicted to doing research. Think of it as the free trial your local dealer gives you. With any luck you will start to pay for it yourself.
I personally would have done something different, but I’m not going to attack someone who does seem to be trying to improve science in New Zealand (Professor Gluckman) just because I think this budget isn’t focussed where I’d like it to be focussed.