Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is indeed today; you are quite right, Senator. It is Dr Marshall saying that he has high hopes that we can transmute commodity mineral sands into unique titanium ink for 3D printing and create a new multibillion dollar industry; turn coal into a cleaner form of diesel fuel to reinvigorate a $43 billion industry; improve yield and prevent waste; make mining more profitable and sustainable; use synthetic biology to engineer precisely the attributes we need; breed new strains of food and agricultural products that are healthier, more sustainable and highly differentiated so that Australia can become a unique source of quality value-added products rather than just a food bowl. This is the level and this is the direction this person is taking the institute.

I was in Taiwan only last Sunday week meeting with the equivalent of CSIRO—ITRI—and they were commenting on the excellence internationally of CSIRO. In January last year I was with Mexican Geological Survey. They showed me the most incredible geological mapping of Mexico's metalliferous products, and turned to me to tell me that the software that enabled them to do that was developed by CSIRO and Geoscience Australia. How proud we should be of that institution.

It does no good in this place to have people pick up an article from the Sydney Morning Herald and to come in here and actually make these allegations and accusations, and in some way besmirch what I believe to be the excellence of the management of this organisation. It is the case that we now need to know what to do about it. It is the case we now need to be devoting to abatement and mitigation strategies, and that is what CSIRO is doing.