Scientists’ Salaries

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25932, 12 October 1949, Page 4

Scientists’ Salaries

I Opposition members in the House ' of Representatives on Friday criti- , cised the low salaries paid to scieni tific workers in the Department of • Scientific and Industrial Research. ; They argued that unattractive rates ‘ of payment caused the loss to New ’ Zealand of some of her best scienj tific brains. The reply of the Minister in charge of the department j (Mr T. H. McCombs) was not very i convincing; which is not surprising, I since the Opposition criticism is i backed by the findings of the consultative committee on scientific manpower resources in New Zealand. of which Mr McCombs himself was chairman in the early stages. This committee was api pointed to consider the policy i which should govern the use and ! development of the Dominion’s scientific manpower resources during the next 10 years. Its report showed that it was satisfied that New Zealand is losing to overseas scientific employers, mainly within the British Commonwealth, more scientists than are returning to or are coming to this country for the first time, and that the loss is in the main of our best scientists. The committee also found that there was a real difference between scientists’ salaries here and elsewhere; and it was so great as to have attracted a disturbing number of the most brilliant New Zealand graduates to both Australia and Britain. Increased salaries were the first recommendation of the committee for improving New Zealand conditions for scientists. It recom- ; mended also an examination, with a view to revision of salary scales for scientists in all Government departments and institutions subsidised by Government funds, since without satisfactory salary scales its i other recommendations were likely j to be largely ineffective. Nothing ! in Mr McCombs’s reply suggested ! that the Government has moved to ' adjust the difference between New ) Zealand and overseas salaries, or so i to improve conditions as to encour- j age scientists to remain here, i Though Mr McCombs did say there had been considerable advances in ; salaries, he seemed to imply that I further advances could not be made i because the whole salary level in j New Zealand, as he reminded the | House, was below that of other j countries. The difficulty of raising ' scientists’ salaries without raising

those of other Government employees was recognised by the Academic Board in a report to the Senate of the University of New Zealand commenting on the consultative committee’s findings. It felt that eventually salaries must be raised if New Zealand was ever going to have an efficient Civil Service in a country which depended for so much on the Government. But that part of the report raises wider issues of Government policy. It is of immediate concern that the permanent loss of any large proportion of the best of New Zealand’s science graduates must affect the whole quality of scientific work, especially in research institutions. That loss has occurred, and is continuing. To say, as Mr McCombs did, that the department was doing the best it could with the staff it had answers no questions, unless he implies that we must be permanently satisfied with mediocrity because the Government is faced with an insoluble economic problem.