The CSIRO’s workforce is paying the price after management squandered a huge short-term government funding boost, former and current senior staff say.

The agency this week announced savage cuts, with up to 350 research jobs – about 10 per cent of the science workforce – on the chopping block . Management slated the cuts to decades of government underinvestment that left the agency “fundamentally unsustainable”.

Most of those cuts will come from CSIRO’s environment, health and biosecurity research teams, this masthead can reveal.

The CSIRO received $459 million over four years from the Morrison government in 2020 to compensate for expected pandemic revenue downturns. Those downturns never eventuated, leaving the agency flush with cash – until the funding boost expired in 2024.

Gover

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