Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for McPherson, a fellow engineer, for drawing attention to the importance of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. It's no secret that I'm passionate about encouraging kids to consider careers in STEM, particularly girls. In my first speech I explained how a love of science starts in childhood. We must give girls Lego to start those building blocks, hand girls spanners and encourage them to use a telescope to reach for the stars.

When I spoke about reaching for the stars in my first speech I was specifically thinking about Dr Gemma Anderson, whose dad shared his love of the stars and helped her gaze at our vast universe through a telescope. Gemma describes this as being a pivotal moment of her deciding to become an observational astronomer. Using radio waves she has monitored black holes, supernovas and gamma ray bursts.

One of Gemma's colleagues, another impressive Swan local, Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker, moved to WA to work on the Murchison Widefield Array, a low-frequency precursor radio telescope to the Square Kilometre Array. Last year, Dr Hurley-Walker was awarded the Astronomical Society of Australia's Anne Green Prize for her work in telescopic imaging of the Milky Way. She also has a great TEDxPerth talk.

There are more impressive Swan women. There's Dr Lucy Commander, who's known for her outstanding research on seed germination in arid Western Australia and the Middle East. Her research has helped the mining industry improve ecological restoration. Effective mine rehabilitation is critical for the mining industry to obtain its social license to operate.

Dr Shani Higginbottom is a researcher scientist for Alcoa and is the lead for the Bayer process research and development. Her work in creating efficiencies in creation of alumina from bauxite will be critical in Australia harnessing our bauxite reserves to their fullest potential.

And, finally, Dr Irene Suarez-Martinez is a material scientist with expertise on the chemistry and physics of carbon materials. She's recently studied the relationship between carbon particles and the greenhouse gas effect. She combines her love of science with fashion, making science outfits with a story. When I met Dr Suarez-Martinez last year at the Science Meets Parliament cocktail reception, she wore a dress representing a crystal lattice structure complete with dislocations to create a form-fitting lattice structure. I thank these rockstar women in STEM in Swan.

Despite having legendary examples, the number of women who work in STEM is only 18 per cent. As an engineer with an 18-year career, I know firsthand that we aren't using our full talent pool. Women are less likely to head into STEM careers. They are also less likely to stay in STEM careers. I remember one of the mothers from my mothers group telling me her mantra as an academic: 'publish or perish'.

Finally, to quote Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute at the Jobs and Skills Summit:

… if untapped women's workforce participation was a massive iron ore deposit, we would have governments falling over themselves to give subsidies to get it out of the ground.

I know this has to change, especially in STEM. The Albanese Labor government is listening and we are acting. We are committed to developing pathways for women and girls to enter STEM careers and stay in them. I'm proud to be a part of a government that is reviewing women-in-STEM programs to determine what's working and what's not and to widen our talent pool. Last month, Minister Husic announced $15.9 million in new WiSE programs for 17 projects that are supporting more women to study and build careers in STEM.

We are ensuring that girls are at the core of our clean energy transition. We are formalising the government's commitment to gender equality in the clean energy transition by signing up to the equal pay, equal leadership and equal opportunity objectives of the global Equal by 30 campaign. This commitment is backed by our government's commitment to make Australia a green industry powerhouse. On Friday, Minister Husic commenced consultation on our National Battery Strategy. Developing this strategy will be critical to our transition to decarbonise our economy, hit our targets and foster innovation and industry. This will mean more STEM jobs for women. I'm looking forward to a future where more girls and women will become the rock stars of STEM.

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