Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to recognise the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which is coming up on Saturday 11 February, and the amazing contribution of Australian women to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Of course, these play a major part in Tasmania and in the electorate of Lyons in particular, in the salmon industry, UTAS and the observatory in my electorate, and across agriculture and medicine. These are all really important fields.

The Albanese government is taking action to drive gender equality, including through supporting women in STEM. From the early days of our government, at the Jobs and Skills Summit, we have made clear that gender equality is an economic imperative, and this means ensuring that women and girls are benefiting from the STEM jobs that continue to emerge across our transitioning economy. In addition to targeted measures supporting women and girls in STEM, the government is developing a national strategy to achieve gender equality and to drive action on gender equality. The strategy will provide a road map for whole-of-community action to achieve gender equality and will act as a framework for changes to policy and budgeting processes required to drive it in Australia. Of course, the Albanese government is putting its money where its mouth is, investing $5.8 million in the October budget to support a more diverse STEM workforce. This includes funding to undertake a review of women in STEM programs to determine what's working and what's not so as to widen our talent pipeline.

It's frankly a disgrace that women make up only 16 per cent of people with STEM qualifications, and our government is determined to ensure that improves. Our review will help us find what works here and overseas and to find out where the gaps are to deliver a more diverse and representative STEM workforce. By widening the talent pipeline we will increase our share in the global economy, which will help us to address the skills shortage. The review will assist with the government's goal to achieve 1.2 million tech related workers by 2030. Our investment also includes $4.7 million to support oversubscribed programs for community and industry led projects, like the Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship program, and research undertaken by the Women in STEM Ambassador.

In January 2023 Minister Husic announced $15.9 million in new WISE program grants for 17 projects that are supporting more women to study and build careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This builds on other important initiatives that seek to raise the profile of women in STEM, such as Science & Technology Australia's Superstars of STEM program and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering Elevate scholarships.

As we recognise the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on Saturday and the amazing contribution of Australian women in the STEM field, I want to give a shout-out to the STEM for Girls organisation that's based in St Helens on the east coast of my electorate. STEM for Girls is a volunteer run organisation which aims to foster a robust STEM education that encourages girls and young women in the community to become critical thinkers, problem-solvers and the innovators of the upcoming generation. STEM for Girls runs workshops across a variety of STEM activities, including coding and programming, engineering, science investigations, computer hardware, maths problem-solving and modelling, food science technology and Lego robotics, just to name a few. At the end of last year STEM for Girls participated in Australia's First Lego League challenge, a robotics competition held around the world that promotes science, technology, engineering and maths. Samvrtha, Tahlea, Dolly and Jackson undertook research, problem-solving, coding and engineering tasks, building and programming a Lego robot, and they did a stellar job, with the team receiving the rising All-Star award, a fantastic achievement.

We know women are terribly underrepresented across STEM fields, and speakers today have enunciated some of the reasons and the impacts that has on women. Organisations like STEM for Girls play such an important role in our communities, providing opportunities for young women and girls to engage with STEM, showing them the possibilities and giving them confidence to potentially pursue further study and careers in fields which they might not have pursued otherwise and which are so important for both our culture and our economy in the years ahead.

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