Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, today I ask a question of the minister about STEM training and why it is so important to the people of Western Sydney. Minister, Western Sydney has before it an innovation revolution. The innovation revolution stems from many different facts, all coming back to this federal government. We have an innovation corridor which in many ways has been spearheaded by some very good friends of ours, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Sydney, Barney Glover, and of course the Chancellor, Peter Shergold.

When we look at the innovation corridor, it goes from Campbelltown in the south, through Penrith and then out to the north-west sector. Over the next 10 years one million people will move into this region. This region is being earmarked, and Penrith, in particular to be a focal point of health and education. Already, with the $3.6 billion worth of federal infrastructure that is coming into this region in just supporting the roads packages, we are seeing science parks coming before the New South Wales department of planning. One in particular, Minister, is the Sydney Science Park. It is owned by the EJ Cooper group, the Baiada group. They see their 280 hectares to be 1,200 jobs, smart jobs—smart jobs in biotech. They also see an additional 10,000 research positions that they would like to come into this facility.

The next one that I would like to talk to you about is Sydney IQ. This sits on UWS land at Werrington. UWS sees there an additional 6,000 jobs—once again, in biotech, engineering, smart manufacturing and the technology and engineering that could go in there. With so much support from the federal government and moral support, they have created a business incubator—working with partners like Google, looking at how they can create the new businesses and a new Google, but an Australian new Google.

My electorate is also the 10th youngest electorate in the Federation. I want to see these smart business parks come in, but I want to see it is the children of Western Sydney that will be the best and brightest. I want to make sure that we provide STEM training to these children and that they grow through their education from primary school all the way through to university—and that it is the children of Western Sydney that will be filling the jobs at the Sydney Science Park and the jobs at the Sydney IQ.

Talking with my local principals—and I have been holding forums with all of my local principals, be it Catholic schools, primary schools, high schools, public schools, independent schools—they are so excited about the future for our region. They are excited about the innovation revolution. They want to get on board. They want to get on board and look at STEM training.

When talking to the principals, overwhelmingly a lot of my school teachers, like myself, hold university degrees from the University of Western Sydney. It is a major university for providing teacher training at the university level. Working with the University of Western Sydney, and with partners like Google, we are going to hold professional development days for the teachers that are already on class. We want to make sure that we get this STEM training all the way through.

When we look at those opposite and their track record here, they came up with a ludicrous idea which had no ability of funding. They could not even get the funding model right. Talking to Professor Barney Glover about this, his thoughts were, and I quote him from the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 May this year:

I'm not sure the evidence is there to support it. We'd need a much more serious debate about it to know if it would be a driver of greater participation in STEM disciplines.

This is really important for my region, Minister. The other thing I wanted to point out was a comment from UWS. The University of Western Sydney is committed to supporting STEM uptake across Western Sydney through initiatives like the Sydney Science Centre. This is a wonderful initiative that the University of Sydney is also looking at. They want a science centre where children can go and participate in science and really get up close and personal with STEM, because they want to see this innovation revolution take hold. They do not just want to see federal government investment in infrastructure. They want to see jobs for the future, jobs for our children. We do not know what jobs will necessarily be there for children in 10, 20 or 30 years time. We want to make sure that our children are creating it.

So, Minister, can you please explain to me what the government is doing to help all of these schools, to help school education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the subjects with the aim of supporting the jobs for the future?

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