Sydney

Australia's opposition Labor Party has sought to make science, technology and education key issues in its campaign for the country's general election on 10 November.

Labor's call for more spending on research and at universities has gained support from unexpected quarters. In Melbourne last month, Australian-born conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch said: “We need urgent support for our centres of learning. It is no exaggeration to say we are threatened with global irrelevance.”

John Howard: “noodle nation”. Credit: PETER POCKLEY

But the warning was rejected by Prime Minister John Howard's governing right-wing Liberal Party, which looked set to lose the election earlier in the year.

Howard is now polling well, after his action to prevent boatloads of asylum-seekers entering Australia and his offer of military help to the United States after the 11 September attacks.

Kim Beazley: tax incentives.

The Labor Party 's campaign centres on further funding of research and universities, the first time these issues have attracted a lot of attention in an Australian election. Under a plan called 'Knowledge Nation' (see Nature 411, 619; 2001), leader Kim Beazley is pledging to double Australia's research spending, as a proportion of the economy, over the next 10 years.

Howard mocks the plan as “noodle nation” and says that his allocation last January of A$2.9 billion (US$1.5 billion) in new research funding over five years, was “the greatest ever single provision for science by any Australian government”.

If elected, Labor promises to spend an extra A$1 billion over five years on engaging more university lecturers. It would increase tax incentives for companies to use research at university and government laboratories, a move that would cost A$88 million per year. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, which has lost 1,000 staff since the Liberal government came to power in 1996, would receive an extra A$160 million over five years.

But science leaders doubt that Labor's gradual provision of new funds will make its 10-year target attainable. Gavin Brown, chair of the Group of Eight universities (which dominate academic research), estimates that a further A$13.6 billion will be needed to match the average research investment of the leading industrial countries by 2005.

Although Labor has declared its support for the current military action, analysts think that the issue of national security may favour the incumbent government.