Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

  (1) acknowledges the key role that Australia is playing in the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project to build the world's largest radio telescope;

  (2) welcomes the recent news that the CSIRO's Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope in Western Australia, an important precursor to the international SKA, has been trialled very successfully with encouraging results;

  (3) recognises the technology employed in this ground breaking project has potential applications extending far beyond radio astronomy; and

  (4) congratulates the Australian scientists, led by SKA Australia Director, Professor Brian Boyle, working with the international community on this project.

I am delighted to bring to the attention of the House, through this motion, the leading role Australia is playing in what is described as the most extensive science collaboration in the world.

As chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Science, together with the member for Corio, I was pleased earlier this year to host a special briefing for MPs on the Australian Square Kilometre Array project and the implications for a range of scientific advancements. During my speech today, I will be referring to documentation that has been prepared by the CSIRO—their fact sheet on ASKAP. I also refer members directly to the website ska.gov.au for a very comprehensive overview of this project.

The ASKAP telescope will help us to understand how our own galaxy has developed and its current structure. It will also be a world leader in the study of pulsars, transient radio sources and magnetic fields in space and will help to cast light on fundamental physics and processes at work in the universe. The technology that is required to construct this project really does help to push the technological boundaries. The SKA will be a complex system incorporating a range of different radio receiver types and communications equipment, several supercomputers and novel cooling and energy generation technologies.

The Square Kilometre Array project currently has 11 partner countries, with more than 100 institutions in 20 countries contributing. It is a testimony to our Australian scientists and the will of government and industry that Australia won the bid to co-host one of the two major telescopes that will help establish the SKA telescope. The ASKAP is a large-scale, world-leading, pioneering astronomy infrastructure installation of 36 antennas in remote Western Australia working together as a single instrument. The design of ASKAP is unique among radio telescopes. Its antennas feature three-axis movement and will use phased array feeds rather than single pixel feeds to detect and amplify radio waves—a development being pioneered by CSIRO especially for ASKAP. These attributes mean that the telescope will survey large areas of sky with unprecedented speed and sensitivity. Initial testing that was carried out earlier this year showed that ASKAP was breaking new ground in radio astronomy technology and performing superbly. The test results showed that it was well on course to achieve its ambitious science goals.

The decision to build ASKAP was made in the 2007 budget under then science minister Julie Bishop, at the same time the Howard government decided to bid to host the SKA. ASKAP was constructed over the period 2007 to 2012 at a cost of $188 million. It is now in its commissioning phase and is showing very promising results. Next year, the formal science program is due to commence.

It is very fitting that we take time today to recognise the team involved in the SKA project here in Australia. As a nation, we are very good at recognising our sportspeople, entertainers, artists, writers and even doctors when they achieve international success. We are less likely to publicly applaud our world-class scientists. I am sure that far fewer people have heard about the big wins our SKA team have had than the loss the Wallabies suffered to Ireland. That is a great pity and something I would really like to see change. We often talk about the need to get more students studying maths and science at school. Perhaps, if they heard more about these exciting scientific developments, they might be encouraged to do so. The fact is that last month two of the teams involved in the SKA project were joint recipients of the 2015 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, one of a cluster of prizes awarded at a star-studded awards ceremony at Silicon Valley in the United States. Then, just last week, the SKA team were the overall winners of the industry minister's fourth annual Australian Innovation Challenge. Not surprisingly, the judging panel found that ASKAP illustrated the characteristic Australian ingenuity that has led to our greatest scientific ideas and breakthroughs.

I again take the opportunity to congratulate everyone involved. I especially recognise Professor Brian Boyle, who was project director and who led Australia's bid to host the SKA. In 2013 he received the Public Service Medal for his work, and he has received numerous awards for his research. He is one of the finest astronomy researchers in the world. Australians should all be proud of our world-class scientists and the vital role our nation is playing in this major international scientific collaboration.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I second this motion. The Square Kilometre Array, being a Western Australian project, is a project that I have been very familiar with over many years. To date it has enjoyed bipartisan support at both a state and a federal level. Certainly, the government that I was a minister of in Western Australia put some very substantial funding towards getting this project up and running. I am pleased to say that that has been continued by the Barnett government.

It is a project that saw very significant investment under the Labor years federally because, as well as having the array, one needs to have the computing facilities that are necessary to allow us to exploit the extraordinary amount of astronomical data that we are receiving. We invested some $80 million in the Pawsey Centre in 2009 for the development of the supercomputing facility. In 2012 we invested some $18.8 million to make sure that Australian firms and research institutes were able to get involved in these SKA projects. It is absolutely fundamental that we provide the capacity for our scientists, for our research institutions and for our industry to leverage into this project. There were a whole variety of private sector companies, including RPC Technologies and Aurecon Australia, that were assisted to get involved, as well as obviously the research outfits—the CSIRO, the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and Swinburne University—that were capacitated by this grant of money to ensure that we were part of this project.

The next big hurdle that we are going to meet is the funding that will be required of Australia for us to participate in the next phase of the SKA, the portion of the SKA that has been awarded to Australia. As members would know, it is being divided between Australia and South Africa. Australia's contribution is estimated to be in the order of 100 million euros or, on current exchange rates, probably about $130 million. That will be a contribution that Australia has to make and we hope that we see the federal government being prepared to step up to the plate.

We are a little bit pessimistic because we have seen the $836 million that has been taken out of science and research and development in the current budget, with a cut to the CSIRO alone of $114 million. I am sure the member who moved this motion is very sincere in her commitment to science. Indeed, I believe the Minister for Industry is also committed and I enjoy attending the Parliamentary Friends of Science events with them. But I think we have to do more than just talk the talk. There has to be a preparedness to invest in science and technology, and one can only say, looking at what has happened in the budget this year with $836 million being stripped out of research and development over the next four years, that one cannot be terribly optimistic.

I conclude by saying that the Square Kilometre Array and the projects that are in place now have very much depended on the delivery of the NBN. The delivery of fibre-optic cable up into that Mid West region has not only been a boon for this project but underpinned a huge fluorescence of new technologies in the Geraldton area. That is another very positive spin-off for our community.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the motion put forward by my colleague the member for McPherson to recognise the outstanding efforts of those involved in the international Square Kilometre Array project. We know this is as the SKA project. Amongst other things, it will see the world's largest telescope built in the Murchison, which is sited in the remote heart of my electorate of Durack in Western Australia.

The project has recently seen the CSIRO's Pathfinder telescope, known as ASKAP, successfully trialled in the Murchison. The ASKAP is a world leading radio telescope, designed, built and operated by the CSIRO. The ASKAP is a precursor to the world's largest telescope, the SKA, which is yet to be built. The technology being developed for the project will continue to evolve and shall have applications far beyond radioastronomy. This megaproject shall have a life of its own over many decades and is only possible with full and committed international cooperation, which has been led by SKA Director Professor Brian Boyle.

The project places a global scientific spotlight on Australia, Western Australia, the Murchison and the broader area known as Australia's Mid West. Towns, businesses, developers and entrepreneurs throughout the Mid West are applauding the benefits that they anticipate will flow from the project, including scientific, research, economic and social benefits. Many are making plans to capitalise on emerging opportunities.

There is a group of miners, developers and government agencies with investments and/or interest in the Mid West that I would like to recognise for their ongoing and very costly efforts in an endeavour to achieve coexistence with the SKA project. You will not be surprised that the SKA project does require radio science. This, of course, is a challenge for iron ore mine operators, trains and transport, not to forget mobile telecommunications. This group of miners, agencies and investors seek to facilitate the SKA moving forward but without unsustainable impacts on other industries and, in particular, on resources and infrastructure projects, which can bring so many economic and social benefits to our nation, the Murchison, the Mid West and Durack more broadly.

There are enormous deposits of iron ore—magnetite and hematite—in the Mid West, as well as a variety of other minerals. The WA Department of Mines and Petroleum data highlight that within a 100-kilometre radius of the SKA and the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory there are 154 mining tenements, with a further 603 tenements within a radius of 100 to 150 kilometres. There is significant potential for projects within these tenements to be adversely impacted by the SKA project's 'radio quiet zone', creating a barrier to investment. This is unnecessary and unwanted.

The 2011 memorandum of understanding between the Australian government and the Western Australian government on radio quiet matters concluded with an agreement to develop strategies on the coexistence of radioastronomy and other economic development. A proactive approach on coexistence is necessary to ensure all parties clearly understand their roles and responsibilities and a system is in place to give practical effect to the coexistence outlined in the 2011 MOU.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy considers the establishment of strong partnerships and mutually beneficial solutions as key to the coexistence of the SKA and other stakeholders. The chamber supports the efforts of state and federal government departments to work with both industry and the CSIRO to develop clarity for those within the coexistence zone. If the efforts of the government departments fail to deliver certainty for industry stakeholders and do not give appropriate effect to the coexistence principles, CME supports the development of alternative arrangements to address the issue, such as regulation or legislation. These alternative arrangements would also contemplate compensation where coexistence cannot be reached.

Some of the entities with interests, investments and/or stranded investment in the Mid West include major mining project proponents such as Mitsubishi, which holds the interest in the Jack Hills project—an ex-employer of mine—and Sinosteel Midwest, which has the Weld Range and the Dead Goat Hill projects. I believe the development of the Mid West would be best achieved through a balance between radioastronomy and continued industry growth. This will result in a diversified economy which delivers investment attractiveness and certainty.

Realising effective and sustainable industry coexistence in the Mid West will require a true partnership approach across all levels of government, local industry and the scientific community. I am very pleased to support the motion put forward by my friend the member for McPherson.

Gary Gray (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of this motion on the Square Kilometre Array. I pay tribute to those members who have spoken, because it is true that the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope reasserts Australia's scientific leadership in astronomy beyond the optical field and back into radioastronomy, where, typically and historically, Australia has been extremely strong. The Square Kilometre Array demonstrates again that Western Australia is more than just a mine. It shows that Western Australia is both the cultural leader and the scientific and research leader of our nation.

The work to establish the SKA and the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory began almost 15 years ago, and it spans the combined efforts of the Howard government, the Rudd government, the Gillard government, the Rudd government and now the Abbott government; and, in Western Australia, the governments of Geoff Gallop, Richard Court, Alan Carpenter and, more recently, Colin Barnett—genuinely deep, bipartisan support for a research project that is global in its nature and timeless in its quest. It is a project which is every bit the same size and scale as the Large Hadron Collider in Europe and every bit the technological leader not just in terms of the physical astronomy but in terms of the science, the technology and the data processing required to drive a radio telescope that in effect has a baseline as big as our continent and extends as far as New Zealand.

There are, among the multiple nations that have supported this, 11 countries that are providing financial support and technological support to get the SKA up and running. From the New Zealanders, the British, the Chinese and the Americans, we have an international collaboration of very significant proportions. It is an international collaboration because we are building the world's largest technically possible radio telescope. It is 50 times more sensitive that any other radio telescope that has been constructed and 10,000 times faster than any similar piece of scientific equipment on the planet or within the grasp of science as it currently stands.

The significance of the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory and of the Square Kilometre Array is in astronomical terms: it will allow the scientific research of astronomical events that date back to the very start of the universe. I am reminded of a rather humorous story about one of the very hardworking Western Australian science ministers—and we have had several in this patch; we had John Day, we had Fran Logan, we had Troy Buswell for a while. When Troy as minister for science in Western Australia was officially opening the Pawsey supercomputing centre, which is related to the Square Kilometre Array, he attempted to answer why we should build the SKA. Troy was asked by a constituent: 'Why would we want to have a radio telescope that could see back to the start of time?' Troy thought for a bit and reflected, 'If we could see back to the start of the universe, we could see the astronomy that underpins the big bang.' The constituent asked Troy, 'Why would we want to see that?' Troy thought a bit more and responded, 'So that it never happens again!' That is pretty thoughtful scientific insight from Troy, who brought both good humour and good public administration to the business of aligning his government with this project at a time when dollars were scarce and priorities were very much focused on the global financial crisis.

This unique part of Western Australia, with its unique landscape, has the unique capacity to put in place the regulations—as has been commented on by my colleague the member for Durack—for the quiet radio environment to allow this project to have the best possible chance of gathering the best possible data to underpin the best possible science that will help grow not just our knowledge of the universe but also our standing as a nation both in scientific research and in international collaboration on that research. I commend this motion to the House.

Debate adjourned.