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GOVERNMENT FAVOURS NUCLEAR

84/155 CANBERRA 22/8/84

The government has indicated a bizarre set of national priorities  by increasing the budget of the Australian Atomic Energy  Commission by eight percent, while cutting the funds available  to the CSIRO by eight percent in real terms, according to the  Australian Democrats.

The Democrat spokesman on Science and Technology, Senator Colin  Mason, said Australia would be pushed even further back in the  world race to research and develop new technologies, especially  in the energy field, as a result of the savage reduction in

CSIRO funds.

"Faced with a funding drop of these proportions, our major  research organisation will now have to slash its programmes  across the board") Senator Mason said. "It is a fact of life  that in such reviews it is the forward-looking, innovative  programmes which are axed first. This government has given  Australia a solid push downwards, even further towards the

bottom of the economic performance of the OECD countries which  we are now fast approaching."

Senator Mason said that he hoped that neither Mr. Hawke nor  Mr. Barry Jones would now have the effrontery to get up and talk  about Australia moving into an era of high technology.

"It was extraordinary that more money was being given to the  dangerous and uneconomic nuclear industry while slashing the more  enlightened programmes, such as solar energy, now being pursued  vigorously in the United States and Japan."

For Further Information contact:

Senator Colin Mason, Parl't House - (062) 737434 A/H - (062) 478147

Printed by C. J. T hompson, Commonwealth Government Printer, Canberra

