Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Science, Jobs and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

Tonight I wanted to put on record some of the great work that is being done by some of our scientists and some of our institutions within government, within some of our universities and, indeed, working with the private sector. I've had the opportunity in my new portfolio in science, jobs and innovation to get to know some of these great areas. This is something the government really wants to build on. I want to pay tribute to some of the great work that is being done.

At the University of Sydney I had the opportunity to visit their Nano Institute, one of our most state-of-the-art scientific research facilities. The Nano Institute is on the University of Sydney campus in Camperdown and was built to the most strenuous engineering standards so it could house labs that do the most precise quantum measurements possible. Dr Gunther Schmidt and Professor Ben Eggleton first showed us their labs at the Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems, which is research into the possibilities of optical computer chips. We then met with Professor Saleh Sukkarieh, who leads a team of very industry focused researchers in robotics. His work is helping agriculture and mining industries to be more efficient in their work, not just in terms of productivity but also in terms of the effect on the environment.

Finally at that facility, I met with Professor David Riley, who leads the partnership between Microsoft and the University of Sydney to work on the development of a quantum computer. This visit was particularly auspicious in light of the announcement a few days later of Professor Michelle Simmons as Australian of the Year, and I again congratulate her on that achievement. David's work is similar to hers. That we have such a wealth of expertise here in Australia in the cutting edge of computer science is a testament to the government's investment in science and research.

Quantum computing is absolutely critical to our future, and the science of that is something that so many Australians are leading the way in. Supercomputers, which we are also investing in—we recently announced a $70 million investment in a supercomputer here at the ANU in Canberra—are so critical because of the amount of data that we have these days. Making sense of that data takes amazing computer capacity. At the moment, we do that with supercomputers. Of course there will be similar, though different, uses once we really crack the code when it comes to quantum computing.

In Sydney I was also able to visit one of Australia's best kept secrets—that is, the National Measurement Institute. The concept of measurement might seem a bit plain and boring but the fact is that measurement is at the foundation of so many parts of our lives, and measurements have to have standards and tests to be effective. At their main facility in West Lindfield, the CEO of the NMI, Jane Coram, showed me around some of the labs that housed some of the most important measurement instruments in the country. Dr Jan Herrmann showed me the atomic clock, which is the clock against which every clock in the country needs to be set to be accurate. Dr Lindsey Mackay took me around the North Ryde NMI facility, which houses the chemical testing labs. This is where our official sports drug testing takes place, as well as where much of the criminal testing is done.

A real highlight was to tour the headquarters of the Australian Astronomical Observatory, also in North Ryde. Professor Andrew Hopkins showed me some of the amazingly precise astronomical measurement instruments that make Australia a world leader in space research. That visit to the AAO was a great help for my visit last week to the Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran. Professor Hopkins was once again on hand as we launched the TAIPAN spectroscopic instrument, an instrument designed by the AAO and purpose-built for the UK Schmidt Telescope.

The TAIPAN uses a technology called Starbugs, which was developed here in Australia. It's an extraordinary innovation, with tremendous opportunities for research and discovery here and overseas. Starbugs are minirobots that rapidly and accurately align the optical fibres of a telescope to target stars and galaxies. This world-first technology makes astronomical surveys much faster and much more efficient by using hundreds of optical fibres to cut down a telescope's configuration time from an hour or two to two or three minutes. So the TAIPAN will provide the most complete survey of Southern Hemisphere stars and galaxies ever undertaken. It will measure up to two million galaxies and two million stars to make new discoveries about dark energy, dark matter and how galaxies and stars form and evolve. The TAIPAN will serve as a prototype for similar positioning systems being developed in Australia for other international telescopes, like the Giant Magellan telescope under construction at Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes.

Massive credit needs to go to Professor Matthew Colless of the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics for his efforts in initiating this great project. I really do want to emphasise how important that technology is in astronomy and in so much science that hangs off that, because it will enable us to get much more detailed analysis of the stars that we can see. The scientific potential of that is great. This is technology that is cutting edge, but it's being done in Australia and it's another great example of some of the great innovation that we have in some of our institutions. It is something I think we should be very proud of.

Closer to home, I had the wonderful opportunity again to visit perhaps our most famous national scientific institution, Questacon, just down by the lake here in Canberra. As a local, I've been to Questacon many times. My children go there often, but it was a new experience to visit there as the assistant minister with responsibility in the area.

I met with Professor Graham Durant, who ably leads a team of enthusiastic and bright science experts, tour guides and volunteers at a place that really is something of a theme park for science. Questacon is one of Canberra's great success stories. In the 2016-17 financial year Questacon welcomed over half a million people through their doors—511,000. It's estimated they make a contribution to the ACT economy of between $59 million and $98 million every year. 2017 was a particularly significant year for Questacon, as they welcomed their 11 millionth visitor in March 2017 and they won gold at the Australian Tourism Awards in Darwin, something that I know all of the staff and supporters of Questacon are very, very proud of, and rightly so.

Questacon of course is not just a Canberra success story, as they do a number of outreach activities to rural and regional areas, such as their Shell Questacon Science Circus, which ran from July 2016 to September 2017. It visited 447 schools and held over 30 community events to reach 108,000 participants. Questacon also present their travelling exhibitions, which reach some 1.7 million people around the world, and their Smart Skills Initiative, which had 25,000 participants.

But what Questacon is most known for, of course, is their fun exhibits and educational displays here at their main building in Canberra. I got to experience their creativity and had to trust their scientific knowledge when they let me hold fire in my hands in a fun display of how water and fire interact.

I want to commend and congratulate Questacon for their ongoing contribution to the city, to our nation, to science and to discovery, particularly for our young people—inspiring young people to consider science, to engage in science and hopefully to pursue educational and career opportunities in science. I certainly commend the work Questacon does not just to my parliamentary colleagues but indeed to all Australians.