Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

congratulates Australian Professor Terence Tao for being the first Australian to be awarded the world’s most prestigious mathematics honour, the Fields Medal, which is considered to be the mathematics equivalent of a Nobel Prize;

(b)

notes the contribution of Professor Tao’s work to progressing understanding of partial differential equations, combinatorics, harmonic analysis and additive number theory;

(c)

trusts that the awarding of the prize will increase the profile of mathematics in Australia;

(d)

notes the remarks of the Minister for Education, Science and Training (Ms Bishop) that the lesson to be learnt from Professor Tao’s experience is the need for an effective early childhood learning environment; and

(e)

calls on the Government to remove the higher burden of the higher education contribution scheme debt applied to teachers of science and mathematics and work with the states to ensure:

(i)

public funding is available for high quality maths and science infrastructure in primary and secondary schools, and

(ii)

that secondary teachers of mathematics and science have degree qualifications in these disciplines.

Question put and negatived.

All Australian Greens senators, by leave, recorded their votes for the ayes.