The feds have announced 25 Linkage Grants, without government MPs getting the good news out there

It’s another in the regular roll-out of Linkage announcements, but the first since the Senate voted to require the Australian Research Council to report new grants to it each month (CMM February 28). This was done to stop the government holding announcements until local MPs had a chance to take credit for money going to universities on their patch.

This can still happen, MPs just have to be quick.

As was Julian Simmonds, whose seat of Ryan includes Uni Queensland.  With Education Minister Dan Tehan he announced Monday a Linkage Grant for Jose Botella, Jian Zhu and Neil Parami at UniQ for research to improve pineapples.

Rather supporting Mr Tehan’s strategy, that research wins when government backbenchers support it, the member for Herbert, Phillip Thomson was also out supporting a grant at James Cook U, which has a campus on his patch – to research rare earth deposits.

The other 25 grants that MPs did not get to announce include; a study of men’s’ religious beliefs and domestic violence (Flinders U and the Lutheran Church), design-based repair and reuse of consumer products at UNSW and a new poultry vaccine (UNSW).