Universities given millions for absurd research grants

While families struggle with soaring costs, universities pocket millions for research into Aboriginal space exploration, public dunny design and pornography, writes Mike O’Connor.

If you’re doing it tough – and it seems that the poor get poorer every year while the rich get richer – then you could consider applying for a grant from the Australian Research Council.

You might care to title your application A Study Into Why I Can’t Feed The Kids or maybe How To Work Two Jobs And Still Have the Arse Out of Your Trousers.


Don’t bother putting your hand out for money to create an Indigenous policy for “culturally respectful and environmentally responsible space exploration”, because that’s already been taken, with the University of Newcastle getting $528,491 to “embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge in Australian space policy”, according to the ARC’s grants list for 2026.

This research will aim to “broaden understandings of outer space by identifying and supporting Aboriginal connections between space and life on Earth’’ while contributing to culturally respectful and environmentally responsible space exploration, the ARC says.

It is, of course, incredibly important to do this, given that Australia does not have, and never will have, a space exploration program. Still, if we ever do, it’s reassuring to know we will have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge to back us up.

I wish I’d thought of it first.

The more creatively minded among you might have thought to have a crack at getting a handout for reimagining public toilets.

Sorry. That one’s been taken too, with Monash University pocketing $712,282 to do what could be described in non-scholarly terms as a deep dive into public dunnies.

What the boys and girls from Monash will seek to do with this money – and we must hope that the research group is gender-inclusive – is “reimagine Australian public toilet infrastructure as a multi-purpose amenity shaped by diverse socio values and cultural needs”.

“In the context of rapid urban change this project deploys a needs-based approach to public toilet design to speculate on a contemporary, inclusive amenity for sanitation,” it says.

I’m all for needs-based. I can never find one when I feel the need.

Wondering who to blame for the fact that electricity prices have gone up by 37 per cent in the past 12 months?

Sydney’s University of Notre Dame should be able to help, after it’s spent $490,495 of your money working on a new theory of “what blame is, what it is for and how it can be used for both good and bad”.

“The project will fill a significant gap in our understanding of the moral emotions and how blame can be abused,’’ the university says.

If you want to get a financial leg-up by winning the research equivalent of Gold Lotto, then you are going to have to think outside the square, like the academic from Monash University who scored $525,650 to watch online pornography.

The end result of this will help us understand “porn creation as a form of digital sexual labour using qualitative methods that centre the experiences of porn creators and audiences”.

Yes, I know – you wish you’d thought of it first.

There’s more, much more, with RMIT University scoring $463,655 to “decolonise cultural policies’’,

while the Australian National University will spend $352,449 to transform our understanding of women’s handwriting.

There’s an opening for you there.

How about lobbing a request for a $500k handout to transform our understanding of men’s handwriting.


Under the previous Coalition government, the education minister had the right to veto projects he or she felt were without merit, a power removed by the current Labor government.


If all else fails, then your best shot might be to make it your business in the new year to get a job in the federal public service, for according to the Institute of Public Affairs, public service workers on average now make 26 per cent more than their colleagues in the private sector, earning about $96,309 a year compared with $76,424.

Get in the queue to sign up.

With the federal public service growing by 5.6 per cent to 386,000 this financial year compared with a population growth of 1.6 per cent, you’ve got to be a good chance to score a gig.

Since Albo moved in to The Lodge there has been a near 25 per cent increase in the public service headcount, and only one in three turn up in the office five days a week.

I’m working on my own research grant application for next year: $1m to research the precise location of every public toilet in the country.

Quote:



It's Albo's way of solving unemployment -

use borrowed money to create worthless jobs in the public service.
The next Liberal Govt will have to cut costs and become unpopular
when they try to pay all the money back -
then Labor gets back in and borrows big time again -
rinse and repeat until there's nothing left and we're a failed State.

Marla wrote on Dec 7^th, 2025 at 2:21am:




Martha,
My name is Bobby  -  sir Bobby to you.

When the Chinese invade the Yanks will send their soldiers to die for us.
That will mean your sorry arse too.

Fox News correspondent Garrett Tenney and Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, comment on
a massive fraud scandal
unfolding in Minnesota's welfare system,
potentially exceeding $8 billion, on ‘America Reports.’

Yadda,
Quote:



I hope you're wrong - the Chinese are on their way here now. 

They are already buying up all our real estate.