Colleen Harkin on The Bond Report News24 – 31 July 2026

Caleb Bond:

Joining me now is IPA research fellow Colleen Harkin. Colleen, what is going on here? It’s an extraordinary explosion in university research. As this university researcher, funnily enough, notes, is being read and used by almost no one.

Colleen Harkin:

Well, at least his is being read and used. It is an extraordinary increase in the cost of research. It’s about $3 billion a year that taxpayers fund for all of this sort of stuff. And to be honest, we all know that IT managers are pretty grumpy people. We don’t need a research paper to tell us that. But the more important component of this is that research is supposed to give us some return on investment, either scientific, medical, economic, social. There should be some kind of purpose to it. But unfortunately, examples like the ones that you have just mentioned are, I mean, nobody needs them. Nobody reads them. What are they for?

And it’s a really unfortunate situation because in the past, Australia has funded research that gave the world WiFi. So research in and of itself is fabulous if it is purposeful and meaningful, but some of the examples that we’re seeing at the moment are just absurd.

Caleb Bond:

Well, indeed. And of course, as you say, we are funding it. And that’s the fundamental problem. I mean, if you want to go off in your own time and conduct research into your special interest topic, which happens to be zip-off trousers, then go for your life. I don’t care what you do on the weekend. But why is it that we are expected as taxpayers to pay for this stuff?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I mean, that’s right. And if I could give you an example, and I’ll need to read this because I want to get it right. This is one from the Australian Research Council for the University of Newcastle that is doing an intercultural protocols for sustainable human activity in outer space. Now, first of all, we haven’t got humans in outer space, let alone intercultural relationships with people at outer space, but its aim is to broaden understandings of outer space by identifying and supporting Aboriginal connections between space and life on earth. And that is worth $530,000 in a research grant.

So taxpayers are being conned here in terms of how much money we’re spending on these things and what we need and why. And this is also at a time when we’ve got a significant and real cost of living crisis with people trying to put food on the table and we’ve got this sort of ridiculous stuff going on.

Caleb Bond:

But how is it that no one looks, someone says, “I want to do a study into the cultural aspects of going to space or whatever and how we can get Aboriginal people.” So I’m going to lob this application into the grants people. And then the grants people read it and go, “Oh yes, actually intergalactic cultural issues are very important.” I mean, is anyone vetting this stuff? How do they make a decision about who does and does not get funding?

Colleen Harkin:

Yeah. Well, that’s right. I mean, the taxpayer funds it. The academics are the people who actually choose the topics that are actually investigated. And unfortunately, there has become this protocol of the amount of papers as opposed to the purposefulness of them. There seems to be this narrative that says, so long as you keep putting papers out, that that’s a good thing. So it’s quantity, not quality. And so that is a circular problem that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we keep throwing more stuff out, we’ll get more money as opposed to putting out maybe less research that’s actually valuable. And it’s the academics themselves who are choosing what topics to research.

Caleb Bond:

Just quickly, Colleen, how much of this do you think comes down ultimately to the fact that university enrollments were uncapped by the Gillard government and sort of any Tom, Dick and Harry was able to get involved in the thing?

Colleen Harkin:

Well, I mean, that’s the case, isn’t it? I mean, how do you need a doctorate in zippers on trousers? It is the case where so much stuff is going on that we don’t need. And don’t forget that some of these people incur debt to do this stuff. So it’s a title that serves no purpose. And so we’ve created this circular perfect problem that we have to cut it back. I mean, there’s so much waste in this time. You could walk in with a red pen and fix it all up tomorrow morning, quite simply.

Caleb Bond:

Well, I might go and find that study on the zip-off trousers and read it this weekend. It could be interesting. Colleen Harkin, thank you for joining me.

This transcript of Colleen Harkin on News24 from 31 July 2026 has been edited for clarity.