New investments in herbaria in Australia

Congratulations to several Australian governments for announcing new investments in Australian herbaria:

The Australian Government in its budget released last month announced an initial allocation of $40M towards construction of a new building in Canberra to house four National Research Collections, including the Australian National Herbarium (CANB), the Australian National Wildlife Collection and the Australian National Insect Collection. While this allocation is not yet enough for the proposed building, it's a good initial allocation.

The New South Wales Government has committed $60 million towards a project to build a new, state-of-the-art facility at the Mount Annan Botanic Gardens in Western Sydney to house the New South Wales National Herbarium (NSW). Construction is expected to commence in 2019. See https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/About-Us/Major-Projects/Innovation-in-Plant-Sciences for more.

The Victorian Government has announced $27M over five years, then $5M per year ongoing to employ 18 new permanent staff at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, including in the National Herbarium of Victoria (MEL), to fix crumbling infrastructure and to run new public programs. The new science positions will include a Bioinformatics Scientist and a Biodiversity Services Manager, plus full funding for all existing positions. See https://www.facebook.com/BotanicGardensVictoria/videos/1856292264394216/UzpfSTQzNDk1NTU2OTkyMjUzMDoxNzIxMTMxMzU3OTcxNjA1/ for more