On a recovery day from the weekend virus and rehearsal last night, I just finished watching Senator Kim Carr at the National Press Club. The Minister for Science, Innovation and Research (at least I think that’s the title) it was yet another almost incomprehensible display of government speak designed to make it look like the government is doing something in each of these areas. That’s the tired and cynical view anyway (which is all I feel capable of at the moment). For I’m just not convinced that phrases like “knowledge transfer” actually mean anything at all in a practical sense. This, and many other gems of public policy discourse peppered both the speech and the q and a that followed. Mentioning the “humanities” a number of times, I wasn’t convinced that the Senator actually understood what the breadth of the discipline was, and it would seem they’re only interested in projects that will make money…the economic imperative. Finally, using Peter Temple’s The Broken Shore and Bell Shakespeare’s Hamlet as his examples of artistic endeavour exemplifying the “inspirational, creative imperative” jarred severely with the tenor of the rest of the talk. Tokenistic at best.
(I’m about to have a coffee now)
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Well, I’ve had plenty of coffee today and I agree (not that I saw the broadcast): “knowledge transfer” is a meaningless term. It’s also a misleading one: it somehow implies that we (the staff) have knowledge and they (the students) just absorb it by some kind of osmosis. Which I’m sure will make me feel better next time I’m still marking at 2 a.m.
But did they “make a commitment” to anything? Don Watson always points out that you have watch out for that. They never explain to what they are committed, precisely.
It’s the equivalent of a journalist saying, “this is a emotional scene”; you always think, “that’s great. There are, of course, many different emotions. Could you narrow it down, at all?”
my impression (which was a little hazy to say the least I guess) was that they are committed to the csiro, increasing money for science, looking at ways to improve funding for humanities research as long as it feeds into areas of government priority(climate change, global warming, as well as water mentioned numerous times). So areas like geography and sociological research obviously of great interest…really it seemed like an increased commitment to making more commitments in the future…although he did start off by reeling of a list of achievements since Rudd was elected…none of which I was particularly aware
Well, as long as they’re committed to making further commitments in the future. I suppose that’s something for us to cling on to.
yes you’re right… I feel a little more optimistic about this today (as opposed to when I wrote the initial post!)