Election promises Both the major parties made a huge list of promises. I had a quick look at both the Liberal Party and the ALP’s, particularly those relevant to the resource industries and Australia’s research capabilities. The Liberals The Liberal Party election policies announced during the campaign were based on 15 plans on a range of issues, including “Strengthening Australia’s World Class Health System”, ‘Lower taxes for Small Business” and “Delivering High Quality Skills and Vocational Education” (https://www. liberal.org.au/our-policies). I could find nothing in this list about higher education or our national research capability and the only reference to the resource sector was: “Support for new resource development in Queensland, having completed Commonwealth environment approvalsrequired to start the Adani Carmichael project, with conditions to ensure protection of the environment.” The Establishment of the National Water Grid: “a statutory authority responsible for national strategic planning and management of water policy and infrastructure” and the opening up of the Beetaloo Basin “for gas exploration and development, delivering more jobs for the NT and more reliable and affordable gas supply for Australia.” The Coalition also endorsed the 2030 Resource Task Force report discussed in the April Preview. The Australian Labour party In contrast to the Liberal’s 25 plans, the ALP produced a massive 309 page tome “A Fair Go for Australia”(https://www.alp. org.au/media/1539/2018_alp_national_ platform_constitution.pdf). The detail in the document is very impressive, but in the context of an election it really should have identified the more important objectives. There are eleven chapters including: 1. A strong economy for all Australians, encompassing, Science and Research, Australia’s Research institutions, Science for Australia’s Future, Industry, and Science and Research Collaboration. 2. Building Australia’s future; encompassing, Minerals & resources: to develop Australia’s natural resources through a competitive minerals, resources and energy industry, backed by quality infrastructure links, which grow export-oriented jobs for our modern economy. 3. Tackling climate change, securing our energy future & addressing our environmental challenges. All good stuff, but how do you sell it to the electorate? The 2019 budget The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, had both eyes on the Election when he gave his budget speech on 2 April 2019. References to resources and research were minimal and mostly referred to medical research. All I could find was: “We’re investing $9 billion this year in science, research and technology, including its commercialisation. And we established the $20 billion Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF), with dividends going to new clinical trials and research. There is also more than $400 million in this budget for genomics research to unlock the secrets of our DNA. And $160 million for research to improve the health of Indigenous Australians. We’re establishing a Heart Kids Project for new research to treat and prevent heart disease which affects thousands of Australian children.” His words on the Environment were equally succinct: “We all have an important responsibility to protect our environment and address climate change. This budget includes a $3.5 billion Climate Solutions Package — $2 billion of which will go to practical emission reduction activities, working with farmers and Indigenous communities.” He announced a $100 million Environment Restoration Fund to deliver large-scale environmental projects protecting the habitats of our threatened species, our coasts, our waterways and cleaning up waste. This would also support practical community action on waste recovery and recycling. The Table 1 below shows how the main science focused agencies fared. The numbers are taken from Appropriation Bill No 1 (mainly operating funds) and the numbers in brackets are the‘average staffing levels’, where these are provided. Most agencies are operating on what was included in the forward estimates last year. Geoscience Australia, ANSTO and CSIRO receive small increases, but their allocations are then cut the following year. Medical research continues to do well. ARC, which covers all disciplines, gets less than the NHMRC, which is just restricted to Medicine. And there is also the MRFF which was established by the Abbott Government for cancer research. I still do not understand why the government continues to attack the ABS. If we are to successfully survive in this very competitive world, it is essential that we have available to us a platform of information covering a wide range to issues. Cutting back on basic statistical information makes no sense. Finally, when we learn that the rate of extinctions is increasing at a rapid why rate, one must question why the funding for our National Parks remains stagnant. The next government should do better.  Canberra observed 30 PREVIEW JUNE 2019 Figure 3.  Annual Government debt as a ratio of GDP from 2009 to 2017.