Senate Economics Legislation Committee [Part 2], , 1:31:59 to 1:41:26
Senators question CSIRO officials about media reports alleging staff edited statements regarding methane leaks at a Santos facility and the internal processes for managing industry-funded research conflicts.
Topics: Integrity, Fossil fuels, Climate change
Speakers: Senator David Pocock, Dr Doug Hilton, Peter Mayfield, Professor Elanor Huntington, Unknown Speaker, Interjection
>> Um thanks Minister. I mean we've still lost over 1100 um people at SRO but I I do take your um your point. Um uh Dr. Hilton, are you aware of media stories today outlining Cyro staff seemingly working to edit statements about a serious methane leak from Santos's gas export hub in Darwin?
>> I'm aware of the media. Um I'm not sure quite what you mean by Cyro staff
>> Are you concerned by reports that Cyro staff um have seemingly worked to dampen statements about leaks from Santos's gas
export hub? So we always look um across the organization to ensure that the statements that we make are pertinent and accurate. Uh if that's what you mean by editing then absolutely we do that
assiduously. Were any of the Syro staff making suggestions about the Syro statement being paid directly or or indirectly uh Syro or Jazer um programs by Santos? >> Uh any of those who are working on the
with Santos. It wasn't done through
Jazera and I think as we talked about at the last estimates Jazera has um run to
>> Sure. the people the people editing the document >> um where was their funding
um science teams in the energy research
>> so sorry >> senator when you're talking about the document which document are you talking about the media statement or the
>> the media statement
>> yeah I'm Sorry, I'm I'm I'm happy to take that one. So So um the the staff the staff who were working on that media statement are all um employed centrally in our enterprise service units. That's that's where that works. Uh and so the project was um commissioned with Santos, but that's um that's not the that's not the same thing as write writing the
So why were they sharing it with Santos before release if it wasn't?
>> They didn't. >> They didn't. So the reporting is ABC has corrected their story.
>> Okay, that's good to um that's good to uh to your knowledge, had any of the Syro staff working on the um on this project um been previously paid directly or
>> So Senator, so in terms of the the work of work. So in 2021 there was a desktop study of methodologies being used by So the people that were working on that did have skills that are common with the Jazera work. We did a lot of fugitive emission monitoring and measurement in Jazera. So you could argue they were paid through the Jazera model. As you remember, that's a combination of federal, state, industry, uh, investment that is then, um, managed through research area committees that are independent of those funders. So, it's done through a a fairly detailed governance model. So, that's that's the They do work outside of Jazera as well. >> Mhm. And Okay. So just just to be clear, nobody who edited the media statement on behalf of Syra had ever been paid um or
contracted by Santos.
>> Correct.
a gas company um which clearly has a serious problem with a leak uh in one of their facilities is paying you to do researchers and humans, they know who's where the money's coming from. Um, what processes are in place to avoid any sort of perceived conflicts of interest?
>> So, we have a and and Dr. Professor Huntington, sorry, Professor Huntington can speak to this. Um, but we have a robust internal peerreview system to handle exactly those sort of issues. Do you want to speak to e- publish? Uh so
in fact I might um pass to to Dr. Mayfield to talk about this particular project.
>> So there were I think as I was saying before there were two pieces of work. Uh each of them produced a report. Both of them those reports went through our system. It's called e- publish. That's where they are independently uh assessed uh by other experts for as a peer review. It was an internal peer review and that process is documented. So um uh we have records of of how we've actually gone and um made sure that works at the right quality. So we're comfortable. It's part of our normal process and has been independently assessed by another reviewer.
>> And I think I think the the thing that gives me comfort is that we have this as a general challenge. So our statutory responsibilities are to do research and deploy research for the benefit of Australian industry and we try to scale what we do by partnering with industry to do that research. So we receive uh funding from a whole range of different private sector sources which I think is what the community would expect that if industry is going to benefit from the science that we do they'll contribute financially to it. So we're always um cognizant of the fact that we're receiving money from industry groups that um benefit from what we do. It's our statutory obligation and we do have those mechanisms in place to show assure that the results that we we publish and put out are independent and the science is high quality. So, it's not an issue that is specific to one particular
>> Just looking at this ABC article, um, just read a few paragraphs to you. As staff drafted a public statement responding to the ABC story, one staffer shared the agency's contract with Santos. And a reply read, "Perfect, that's pretty clear." Says, "We can do monitoring, but we didn't." One staffer then asked the other if they had checked the public statement about the ABC report with Santos asking, "Are you going to send our statement to your mate?" A staffer responds, "All good." I sent to their media chap this morning, noting that Santos would be busy with another story about the leak that day in the AFR. Um, how long before the media release went out was it given to Santos and did Santos give any feedback on the media release?
>> Uh, Senator, it wasn't. Uh the um media release was uh the link to the public u website for the media release was sent to Santos um after it was published.
after the fact. They just sent them the
link
>> Okay.
>> And that's something we do with partners
Okay. That's good to um that's good to know. Um, do you know who the mate being referred to is?
>> So, so the use of mate was colloquial as, you know, I might say I have a mate in the public service. It was not a cozy relationship. It was a a a casual use of >> I know that sounds cynical, but it's a word we use in Australia a lot, Senator. So, I I don't think there's some grand conspiracy between mates there. It was literally used in, you know, you have someone, you know, in the Santos office because our staff are well connected across a lot of different sectors.
>> And so, do do you know who it was?
>> Do I know who
>> old mate is?
>> That's not that's not what it says. It doesn't say old mate.
>> I know, but the mate.
>> Yeah, we know the person in the office and and there was no cozy relationship
>> Okay. Okay. I mean, you can see how it it could be concerning to the public given where we're at with methane leaks in this country and the lack of attention to them, the way that they just don't seem to get get fixed and our premier science agency.
>> I agree.
>> Has this sort of But I really appreciate you um setting the record. Correct.
>> Senator. Um just just for the record um the officers involved in that conversation um volunteered that material themselves even though it did not show them in a particularly good light and they have been very reflective about the fact that those communications were not of the kind of of the standard of professionalism that we would expect in CSRO.
>> Sure.
>> Uh and they um have been very introspective about that.
>> Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thanks