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

Today I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Dirk Treasure from my electorate of Adelaide, who last night was one of the recipients of the Prime Minister's Prize for Innovation as part of the Prime Minister's Prizes for Science. What a deserving recipient and what an amazing story—a journey of innovation and success. Dirk, together with his colleagues Dr Nick Cutmore and Dr James Tickner, has developed cutting-edge technology called PhotonAssay. Until recently, goldminers had been forced to rely on difficult and dangerous processes to measure the amount of gold in a sample. It was done with dangerous chemicals, causing danger to the health of those working on that particular process. This process was dangerous to both people and the environment. With this new technology, high-energy X-rays are able to count individual atoms safely and accurately. This technology has been very successfully commercialised, and it's being exported over to Canada, to African countries and to many other countries. The result is a corporation called Chrysos, proudly based in South Australia. The company today employs 75 people and continues to grow. It's estimated that it will grow to about 150 next year, and it was recently listed on the stock exchange. What an amazing story of research, innovation and successful commercialisation. Congratulations to Dirk, Nick and James on receiving this award. They are an inspiration to many.