Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are here today to acknowledge a truly great achievement by one of our Australian scientists and his team. Professor Brian Schmidt of the Mount Stromlo Observatory at ANU has become one of just 12 Australians to win a Nobel Prize—indeed, the first since 1915 in Physics—and, in doing so, has not only made a significant scientific discovery but shown once again that Australia is at the forefront of innovation. Professor Schmidt led a team of approximately 20 international researchers who discovered that the expansion of the universe was not behaving as commonly believed, a very unexpected and exciting result. In short, contrary to what was believed, the universe appears to be speeding up rather than slowing down as it expands. This was unexpected, as gravitational forces act to slow things down by pulling down on all matter, so it was expected that, as the universe expanded, it would also be slowing down. However, Professor Schmidt and his team have discovered that this is not the case, implying that there is an additional push coming from somewhere to counteract these gravitational forces. This push acts like antigravity and is known as 'dark energy' although scientists are yet to determine where this push comes from or what dark energy is.

When interviewed about his achievements, Professor Schmidt was the first to acknowledge and emphasise the work of his team, which included two other Australian scientists, Professor Warwick Couch from Swinburne University and Professor Brian Boyle from the CSIRO. Professor Schmidt also acknowledged another international team which made the same discovery and is sharing the Nobel Prize with Professor Schmidt and his team.

Professor Schmidt's achievement underscores the excellence of Australian science, particularly Australian astronomy. Australia has been providing world-leading research for more than 50 years, in many cases outperforming the United States and Europe in scientific impact per paper, despite our much smaller population. Australian astronomers and researchers have proved their ability to make significant contributions to science and our understanding of the universe at the most fundamental level. Our telescopes and the teams involved in their operation are world class. The Parkes radio telescope, made famous, of course, by the Australian film The Dish, has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. Together with the Anglo-Australian optical telescope at Siding Spring, in the Warrumbungle National Park, it has provided the excellent data that has contributed to Australian and international discoveries and innovation. Whilst we celebrate these telescopes, we need to upgrade our access to facilities to continue to address the cosmic questions of the 21st century.

As Professor Schmidt's achievement shows, Australia truly is producing world-leading research and its facilities are cutting edge and help facilitate this research. As I mentioned in my maiden speech, Australia and New Zealand are now poised to secure the Square Kilometre Array site. The SKA will over the next 50 years provide essential opportunities for Australia to shine as an international leader in research, technology and innovation. As Australian astrophysicist Professor Peter Quinn says:

We can only dream of the amazing insights and Nobel prize-winning discoveries that the SKA will provide. The SKA will let us see the dawn of time—the first light from the first stars, discovering what dark energy is and finding out that we are not alone in the universe are but a few of the exciting discoveries we hope to make with an SKA based in Australia.

It is the quality of our scientific community, our technological experience and our capability that will ensure that Australia and New Zealand provide the best possible site for the SKA. This will allow the global community to realise the vast scientific vision and opportunity the SKA brings. Indeed, Professor Peter Quinn himself was researching dark matter at Mount Stromlo and subsequently was part of the ESO, the European Southern Observatory, team that built the world's largest telescopes at Paranal in Chile.

It is indeed a truly exciting time for Australian science, and I am pleased to have the opportunity today to congratulate Professor Brian Schmidt and his team on their outstanding contribution, recognised by their winning the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate Professor Brian Schmidt, a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.    The Royal Swedish Academy of Science has awarded Saul Perlmutter, Adam Riess and Professor Schmidt this distinguished prize for their evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. It was Richard Feynman, the winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics, who said: 'If I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.' So I do not think I, as a non-scientific parliamentarian, will have great success in explaining the basis of this award. However, I would like to try.

In 1994, working at the Australian National University Mount Stromlo Observatory here in the Australian Capital Territory, Professor Brian Schmidt and other members of the High-z Supernova Search Team at observatories around the world started measuring the rate of expansion of the universe. They expected to find that the universe is slowing down, but by 1998 they were convinced their first three years of data showed the opposite: the universe is speeding up.    This finding has had a profound impact on our understanding of the universe and its ultimate fate and is a reminder of the seriousness and significance of the work that astronomers, physicists, astrophysicists and cosmologists—indeed, all scientists—do.

Professor Schmidt was born in the United States in 1967. He developed his love of science as a young boy, watching his dad work on his PhD in biology in his lab, and went on to study physics and astronomy at the University of Arizona and his masters and doctorate at Harvard University. Professor Schmidt relocated to Australia with his wife, Jenny, in 1994. He still lives here in Canberra and is now an Australian Research Council Fellow and an astrophysicist at the Australian National University Mount Stromlo Observatory. He is also an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and a grape grower and winemaker who tweets under the name CosmicPinot.

Professor Schmidt is the 12th Australian to be awarded a Nobel Prize and the second to win it in physics, the other winner being Sir William Lawrence Bragg, who shared the 1915 prize with his father, Sir William Henry Bragg. He joins the ranks of fellow Australian Nobel Prize winners, including Sir Howard Florey, Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Peter Doherty and Barry Marshall, all pioneers of medical science, and some giants of 20th century physics, including Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, Paul Dirac, James Chadwick and Enrico Fermi.

On behalf of a grateful nation, I congratulate Professor Schmidt on being a joint winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, an incredible achievement of which we are all very proud.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a physicist by training, I am very proud of our physics laureate Professor Brian Schmidt. The winning of the Nobel Prize in Physics makes me think of the way that science operates, which will be part of my discussion today.

We have heard a lot about scientific consensus, meaning that the views of anthropogenic global warming sceptics should be discounted. But let us examine scientific consensus in light of this year's Nobel prizes in both physics and chemistry. Twenty years ago, the unanimous—not just the consensus but the unanimous—view of physicists, cosmologists, astrophysicists et cetera was that the expansion of the universe was slowing as gravity inexorably pulled galaxies towards each other. The question then asked was whether there was enough mass in the universe for the galaxies eventually to collapse towards each other—the so-called 'big crunch'. No-one questioned that view until Professor Brian Schmidt and two others smashed this consensus by discovering that the expansion of the universe was in fact accelerating. As a result, they were awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physics.

Similarly, this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Dr Daniel Shechtman for work on quasicrystals. As a result of this work he was ridiculed by the establishment and was asked to leave his research group at the prestigious National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US. It took a full two years before a peer reviewed journal deigned to publish his work.

This year's Nobel prizes for both physics and chemistry have been awarded for smashing scientific consensus. As I said in a discussion with Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb, major advances are made breaking a consensus, while only incremental advance occurs within a consensus. We need to be careful of mindguards and groupthinkers who insist that simply because a certain view is a consensus view it is correct and must be defended at all costs. So to anthropogenic global warming, where consensus and support from scientific institutions are invoked in defence of this idea. This is despite the science of anthropogenic global warming being less 'settled or secure' than that of quasicrystals or of the universe's expansion decelerating prior to revolutionary thinkers and observers challenging the accepted view. The whole premise of mankind and, in particular, carbon dioxide emissions being responsible for climate change is not the result of fundamental physics but of computer model outputs.

Computer models must be judged in terms of their predictive capacity, and it is here that these models have proved to be lacking. It has been said of computer models it is garbage in, garbage out, except in the case of climate change computer models, where it is garbage in, gospel out. Problematically, the predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change using these much venerated models have not matched what has been observed. In terms of global average temperature, the models predicted an increase in the last decade, even for the case where carbon dioxide concentration is held constant. Observations using the IPCC's own Hadley Climate Research Unit dataset show no increase in global temperatures this century.

Ms Hall interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member for Shortland seeking to ask a question?

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am seeking to raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order being?

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The point of order is that the member for Tangney is not speaking to the motion and he is actually doing a disservice—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Shortland will resume her seat. The member for Tangney will continue with his speech. I am listening carefully, and he is within the parameters but skirting on the edges.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Certainly, Mr Deputy Speaker. Thank you. I was saying that observations show no increase in global temperatures this century and, for the benefit of the member for Isaacs, nor does the satellite record show this, as is evidenced by Remote Sensing Systems satellite data. Hence the wave of peer reviewed papers—and I stress 'peer reviewed'—from consensus scientists now being published in an attempt to justify, in hindsight, the lack of warming. The Prime Minister's climate science adviser, Professor Will Steffen—

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The motion before the House is on Professor Brian Schmidt, whose work is on the accelerating universe.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I remind members that this is a statement by indulgence, which gives broad scope to what the speaker can speak on.

Ms Hall interjecting—

Order! I have made a ruling. It is a statement by indulgence and there is broad scope to what the speaker can speak on. The member for Tangney.

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Prime Minister's climate science adviser, Professor Will Steffen, says that warming has occurred in the oceans, which is why observed global air temperature increases have not been observed. Unfortunately, since the very accurate Argo Buoy network was launched in 2003 there has been no heating of the world's oceans. With this network there has been more data on the world's oceans collected than for the rest of human history combined. Similarly, we have heard the dire predictions on sea level rise; but, once again, sea level rise has been observed to be decelerating, not accelerating as predicted by the models. Funnily enough, this is in contrast to Professor Schmidt's work on the universe where the opposite has occurred. It has been found that the universe is accelerating its expansion rather than decelerating it.

In 2011 the term 'the science says' is being used in the same way as 'God says' was used in the past in an attempt to stop any debate or discussion. We need to ensure that the mind-guards of today are not allowed the same unfettered, unquestioned power as in times past. This year's physics and chemistry Nobel laureates demonstrate why the carbon tax has scientific bedrock that is very unstable. Thank you.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind members that this is a statement by indulgence, which gives broad scope. Nevertheless, this statement is on Brian Schmidt but there is broad scope because it is a statement by indulgence.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Professor Brian Schmidt's day job involves measuring the difference between exploding stars, studying dark energy and tracking the expansion rate of our universe billions of years back in time. But, after becoming Australia's newest Nobel laureate, the most important task at hand for Professor Brian Schmidt was making sure he was not late for class the next day. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has recognised the incredible work of Professor Schmidt, a lecturer with the ANU's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, awarding him the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, an award which was shared with Professor Adam Riess and Professor Saul Perlmutter, both from the United States.

After 20 years of painstaking research and observation Professor Schmidt joins the likes of Wilhelm Roentgen, who discovered X-rays, and James Chadwick, who discovered the existence of the neutron. He follows on from Australia's last winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, father and son duo William and Lawrence Bragg, who won the prize in 1915 for their work on X-ray crystallography. Let us hope it is not another century before Australia brings home another Nobel Prize in Physics.

To have a scientist of such high calibre as Professor Schmidt teaching at the Australian National University, a university which I am proud to represent, is a great blessing. It is testament to Professor Schmidt's dedication to building the astronomers and physicists of tomorrow. Professor Schmidt's prize-winning body of work focused on the nature of the universe itself. By examining the strength of light coming from exploding stars—supernovas—Professor Schmidt and his team discovered that the universe is speeding up as it expands, rather than slowing down as had previously been thought to be the case.

Reflecting back on a lengthy period of study, Professor Schmidt said, 'What we were hoping to see was how the universe slowed down with the gravity within it over time, but what we found was the opposite: the universe was not slowing down at all; it was speeding up.' In addition to this Professor Schmidt and his team have discovered that 75 per cent of the universe is constituted by dark energy, the existence of which was previously not even known.

The study of physics was the prize area that Alfred Nobel mentioned first of all in his will. At that time, in the late 19th century, physics was regarded as the foremost field of scientific study. With Professor Schmidt's revolutionary discoveries coming to light over 100 years later, it reinforces the value of the constant pursuit of knowledge and reminds us how much we have yet to learn. This is upheld by Professor Schmidt himself, who presented his regular lecture the day after receiving his award. One of his students commented on his commitment to teaching: 'He brings it down to a level where all of us can really understand and he gets really involved in everything he is teaching us.'

Professor Schmidt credits his strong education with his success and he is passionate about ensuring his students are afforded the opportunities that were afforded to him. He said he sees his award as a positive for the broader Australian community and has expressed his hope that it will give aspiring young Australian students the inspiration to pursue a career in their area of interest. Noting the prosperity of Australia, Professor Schmidt said a strong scientific legacy will only be attainable if 'we make our citizens the best educated in the world'. He has highlighted the importance of strategic funding and the management of the Australian education system. According to Professor Schmidt, 'They say in politics that education and science do not win elections but they are what make nations rise and fall.'

Professor Schmidt has been vocal in his public advocacy since winning the Nobel Prize, speaking out, for example, in defence of the strong consensus of Australian science that the world is warming and humans are causing that warming. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Schmidt at an ANU reception last Friday. When I went up to shake his hand, he had just been mobbed by a group of what he thought to be about 200 students. He said it was not something he ever thought would happen to him on a university campus.

I asked Professor Schmidt what he thought was most important to report back to the parliament as the member representing the Australian National University, and he made two points. First of all, he said his Nobel prize was a reminder of the fact that the Australian National University is not just another university; it is an institution that was created with the notion of furthering research boundaries. It is the nation's premier research institution. Professor Schmidt said it was only at the ANU that he felt he could have done this prize-winning work. Secondly, Professor Schmidt reminded me that it is the international outlook of Australian academia that allowed him to do the work that he did. It allowed him to collaborate with international teams in the United States and Europe. Professor Schmidt said that, while many researchers in the US are at the cutting edge, sometimes they can forget to look outside the boundaries of their own country. That is not a mistake that Australian researchers typically make.

In closing, I would like to also pay tribute to the recent Nobel laureates in economics, an area which I know a little more about than physics. The Nobel this year went for work on empirical macroeconomics and particularly the identification of low-frequency macroeconomic events. These questions are absolutely critical in considering the optimal role of fiscal policy. Thomas Sargent did his work on structural econometrics, emphasising rational expectations, which is the notion that economic decision makers do not make systematic mistakes in forecasting. It is an important framework, particularly for interpreting the inflation and unemployment experience of the 1970s and 1980s. Christopher Sims did his work around vector autoregression techniques aimed at identifying the causal impact of low-frequency events using time series data. I commend them both for their work in economics.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Winners of the Nobel prizes were announced in Sweden on 4 October 2011 and this year the prize in physics was shared by three astronomers who discovered that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. Professor Brian Schmidt from the Australian National University is one of the joint winners. His work is said to have changed the face of astronomy. The Montana America born Australian citizen will share the prize with his long-time friend and collaborator Professor Adam Reiss, an astrophysicist at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The first Australian to win a Nobel Prize in Physics since 1915, Professor Schmidt and his team discovered in 1998 that the expansion of space was accelerating. This holds out the prospect of a bleak cosmic future in which stars will eventually dim and bring about a new dark universe.

Professor Schmidt and his team were hoping to see how the universe would slow down over time because of gravity. But what they discovered was quite the opposite. The universe was not slowing down at all; in fact, it was speeding up. As a result of this work, he and his team reached a conclusion: the universe was doing the opposite of what science thought it would. To the ABC last week, Professor Schmidt said:

It certainly means that gravity as we know it is not operating in the universe the way we expect it … It would seem that what we've discovered is about 75% of the universe is the stuff we didn't know existed—which we now call dark energy.

Professor Schmidt sees the Nobel physics award as something positive for Australian science in general and hopes that his example will inspire others to give young people a chance in their chosen fields.

Professor Schmidt told the Australian that the work that he had done was made possible by the way that Australia does science. He said that he hoped that the award would show the opportunities that we have here in Australia to do great work. He said that the win is a celebration of the science that has been done here in Australia by astronomy and by physics as a whole.

Universities all over Australia are celebrating the recognition that science so rightfully deserves and the award for Professor Schmidt and his team will hopefully instil into students all over Australia the difference that they can make in a profession. His award certainly delighted both lecturers and students at the Charles Sturt University campus at Wagga Wagga. I know the groundbreaking work and effort that they put in on behalf of science and for Australia is well recognised and well appreciated.

Professor Schmidt, a popular lecturer at Canberra's Australian National University, is humbly continuing his teachings at the universities as students prepare for important end-of-year examinations. Students at his third-year astrophysics class at the ANU spoke of the professor's easy-going nature with some quite unaware of his involvement in the discovery, and this quote is from the Australian:

'You certainly don't expect your lecturer, who just appeared to be a normal lecturer, to win the Nobel Prize,' said 19-year-old Tom Juhola.

Pete Kuzma, 21, said, 'I had no idea that he actually did this work. To head into university and find out that he was the one who did this study, and that he's internationally renowned for it, was a very big surprise.' For Australia's 12th Nobel Prize and the sixth for the Australian National University, I offer my congratulations to Professor Schmidt and his team, to the university and also to science. Professor Schmidt said:

They say in politics that education and science don't win elections, but they are what make nations rise and fall. They are the engine behind Western civilisation …

When I first came to Australia 15 years ago, it was a well-off nation that was isolated by oceans from the rest of the world. Now we find ourselves a very wealthy nation in the middle of Asia, the place where the world's economy is booming.

I will continue to quote, because his words are extremely important and relevant today—certainly in today's politics:

We have to take this opportunity, which is really as good as Australia has ever had it, and ensure we get a lasting legacy for the next century.

Indeed we do.

The Australian article continues:

Speaking to the Australian exclusively ahead of the awards ceremony at Parliament House, he said that legacy would come only if 'we make our citizens the best educated in the world and from that, from strategic planning, use those people to progress science and technology.'

'Getting our wealth by digging it out of the ground is fine in the short term, but we need to add value and create things that we and the rest of the world want to use,' Professor Schmidt said.

'We have a great platform: we are in the right place geographically, we have the resources to do it and it's a matter of putting together a long-term plan of how to do it. It might take a very long time to sort out, but it needs to be done.'

On behalf of the Riverina, certainly on behalf of this parliament and the nation, I say again to Professor Schmidt: well done.

Sitting suspended from 12 : 21 to 16 : 01