Press Conference with Simon Birmingham and Karen Andrews
11 Dec 2015
Transcipt E&OE TRANSCRIPT
Press Conference with Simon Birmingham and Karen Andrews at the University of Adelaide
11 December 2015
SUBJECTS; National Innovation and Science Agenda; Focus on STEM in education;
Christopher Pyne: Right. Well ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you very much for coming today. It’s great to be here at IPAS at the Adelaide University, which of course is the alma mater of myself and Simon Birmingham, with Assistant Minister Karen Andrews, who’s the Assistant Minister for Science, and of course Simon Birmingham who’s my South Australian Cabinet Colleague as the Minister for Education and Training.
Today is a wonderful way to focus the attention of the public on the innovation statement around collaboration between universities and industry, because this is a great example here at this centre of direct collaboration between researchers and companies that need that research to create jobs, and growth, and profits in their businesses. Not only do we have the IPAS and the centre here for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, which is one of the ARC’s Centres of Excellence, but Trajan, a Melbourne business, is operating here, embedded as part of the university because of the important collaboration. It’s a great example of what the Government is trying to encourage, and happily I’ve also been to Trajan in Melbourne, because we gave them a Next-Generation Manufacturing grant a couple of months ago because of the good work that they are doing.
The National Innovation and Science Agenda that Malcolm Turnbull and I launched on Monday has a large component in it of support for universities. I’m going to comment on two of those. The first is that we have invested in research infrastructure. So in our walking around today we’ve seen examples of equipment funded through the National Collaborative and Research Infrastructure Scheme; a scheme that was at risk under the Labor Party because it didn’t have ongoing funding that we then found two years of funding for when I was the Minister for Education, and now we’ve got 10 years of funding, $1.5 billion as part of this National Innovation and Science Agenda. And so to the National Collaborative and Research Infrastructure Scheme we are investing in university infrastructure. We have also put money into the Synchrotron and the Square Kilometre Array, making sure that Australia will stay at the cutting edge of those areas of research, and decided to fund quantum computing at the University of New South Wales, which if we win that world competition will be worth billions of dollars to the Australian economy. And I’m happy to say the Commonwealth Bank followed up the next day with $10 million, and Telstra the day after that with $10 million. So we’ve already got the NISA working for jobs and growth, turning $26 million into $46 million for quantum computing at the University of New South Wales.
And a second big aspect of the National Innovation and Science Agenda is the commercialisation of research. We have some of the best research in the world, we’re sixth in the OECD for quality of research, we’ve produced 15 Nobel Prize winners in this country, 13 of them in science and medicine. And to put that into perspective, China’s produced two, and we’ve produced 15. So it’s actually quite an important achievement, and we’re here in a building named after the Bragg father and son team who won a Nobel Prize very early in the piece for creating the x-ray. So it is a good place to be when talking about Nobel Prize winners. And as an aside, as a South Australian I might say, five of those 15 Nobel Prize winners are South Australians. So we are punching well above our weight in terms of Nobel Prize winners in this great state of ours.
Before I lose my train of thought, talking about the collaboration between researchers and industry. So while we’re sixth in the OECD for quality, we are thirty-third in the OECD for commercialisation of research, which is obviously something we have to fix. And so the National Innovation and Science Agenda will change the way we fund research grants in Australia to reward researchers and universities that have a collaboration with industry, that are producing a research impact. But we’ll also continue to support blue sky research on a 50-50 basis, because a lot of great things come from blue sky or basic research. So we’re getting the balance right, and today is a good example here at the Bragg building of what can be done with collaborations between universities and industry, and that’s what the Turnbull Government is trying to encourage.
So I’ve spoken for long enough. I’d like Simon now to address some of the issues that he wants to talk about in science, technology, engineering and maths, and then Karen will talk about inspiring young Australians in science and innovation, and then obviously we’ll take any questions. Simon?
Simon Birmingham: Well thanks Christopher, and thank you Karen for coming along today. And it’s really inspiring to see what universities like this are achieving, working in cooperation with industry. And what we hope out of the National Innovation and Science Agenda is to see much, much more of this sense of collaboration. But for success to happen in our research facilities and between researchers and industry, we need to have basic skills. We need to have skilled individuals coming through in science, mathematics, engineering. We need to make sure that across all of those different fields, the STEM subjects, that students are coming out of our schools equipped to go into university, and to excel in science, to excel in technology, to excel in engineering or mathematics. And so it’s very important that as part of our agenda that was released this week we’re not just focused at the end of research industry collaboration, but on building the STEM skills as well. And importantly we have put in investment into that, but are also seeking to drive reform through the school system too. We’re already investing in extra coding activities in our schools, in extra summer schools for students, in ensuring that our curriculum is focused where it needs be on maths and science.
But today we have a meeting of the national education ministers and the Education Council too. And at that Education Council meeting we’ll be talking about how much further we can go in ensuring that Australia lifts the scientific performance of school students, the mathematical knowledge of school students, so that when they go to university they have the basic skills to fly into their science programs, to excel, and hopefully to contribute to great research outcomes such as those we’re seeing today.
Some of the options under discussion at the Education Ministers’ Council include consideration of minimum benchmarks for mathematical skills before students complete year 12. Include consideration of loadings(*) for year 12 students going into university that give greater weight to students who are undertaking advanced mathematics subjects, or science subjects. These are incredibly important options for us to consider if we want to change incentives and behaviour in schools, just as we want to change incentives and behaviour in universities. We want our universities to focus on how their research collaborates with industry and of course lifts economic performance. We want our schools to focus on ensuring that they are training students across science and mathematics so that they’re well equipped to go into university and to excel in the new economy.
These are very important discussions today that build on the agenda that Christopher and Malcolm Turnbull and Karen Andrews have released this week. It’s critically important that we don’t just look at the Innovation Agenda as one statement – valuable though all of those reforms are – but as a constant work in progress, and ensuring our schools are doing their part is a critical aspect of that.
Karen Andrews: Thank you Simon and thank you Christopher. We know that 75 per cent of the jobs of the future will require strong STEM skills - science, technology, engineering and maths – and we don’t- we know that we don’t have that capability here domestically in Australia at the moment to meet our needs for the future. We recognised this in the National Innovation and Science Agenda, and we have specifically looked at how we address the problem by starting the pipeline early. So we are looking at making sure that we are inspiring our very youngest future scientists and engineers, from kindergarten all the way through the critical years of years five and seven, where we know that if we don’t have children engaged at that point, they are unlikely to move into STEM careers.
So we’re addressing that with digital support, so coding support for our years five and seven into the future, and we’re making sure that we’re going to be working with our universities, and certainly the University of Adelaide is doing some great work already in inspiring the children at schools to take up science and maths subject and progress through to university to study science and engineering. So there’s certainly lots of encouragement in the National Innovation and Science Agenda to make sure that we are well equipping our students of the future for the jobs of the future, which are certainly in science, technology, engineering and maths.
Now a critical part of that is making sure that we have women in the STEM subjects at school, and why are we doing that? The answer is actually very simple. It’s to make sure that we have the largest possible talent pool for the future. And if we don’t have women, and particularly young girls studying science and maths subjects at school, we won’t be growing the talent pool that we need for the future. So in the National Innovation and Science Agenda, there is specific funding for women so that we can be supporting our younger students all the way through and producing the great scientists and engineers of the future. Thank you.
Christopher Pyne: Thanks Karen. So any questions from the Fourth Estate?
Question: So Minister Pyne, could you maybe just start with the fibre optic cabling, it is still being manufactured, you’ve seen it in action, you’ve seen what it can do. Any thoughts on maybe extending that NBN to go fibre to the premises now that you’ve seen the technology here in Adelaide?
Christopher Pyne: Well the expert on the National Broadband Network is the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and now the Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield, but I can tell you that because of the Government’s taking the NBN in hand under Malcolm, it will be delivered six to eight years faster than it would have under the Labor Party. It’ll cost a great deal less, and it’ll achieve the same speeds that would have been achieved otherwise. But we’re not going to focus on the means to the end; we’re focusing on the end. And the end is making an economy that is able to use technology to create jobs and growth.
Now Labor created the NBN on the back of a beer coaster on the VIP(*) aircraft, between Steve Conroy and Kevin Rudd. It was up to Malcolm Turnbull to fix it, and he did it. He’s done it; it’s going to be faster, it’s going to be cheaper, and it’s going to use a mixture of technologies, which is what smart people do, rather than simply ideologically pursing a means to an end, which Labor would have done, at great cost to the Australian taxpayer. Our government is going to look at the end that we’re trying to reach, and use different ways to get there. Whether it’s satellite for farmers, and I think in the new year there’ll be two satellites will be in operation, ensuring that farmers are connected no matter how far they are away from CBDs. That is the kind of smart thinking that this government is going to be - it’ll be a hallmark of this government.
Question: Do you think though in NBN it’s utilising an ageing copper network might contradict some of the things that the PM outlined on Monday? He’s talking about being innovative, he’s talking about a technology-driven future. If we are moving towards that future shouldn’t we have an NBN made with fibre that can handle that kind of capacity workload?
Christopher Pyne: Well the new NBN fibre will be exactly as you’ve described it. Where the copper network is able to be used it will be used. Where the copper network is not able to be used it won’t be used. And that’s what smart people do. Under the Labor Party, if you were building a greenfield residential estate, for example, and Telstra had already laid cables there, under the National Broadband Network that Steve Conroy in Conrovia was responsible for, they were going to lay cables on top of Telstra’s new cables. They were going to put new cables on top of new cables, because that’s the kind of contracts that they had signed. That was the use of taxpayers’ money. Well I don’t think the taxpayers want blind adherence to stupid policy. Labor’s policy was dangerous, and we are going to fix it.
Question: Minister Pyne, while we have you front and centre, if you permit me to ask you a few questions related to politics at the moment. Do you think it’s a distraction for the Government to have Tony Abbott sticking around on the backbench until at least the next election?
Christopher Pyne: No, I think Tony Abbott is a great advocate. He’s a great member of the Liberal Party. The statements there that he is making are completely in concert with the Government’s position, and he has not said anything that is at odds with the Government’s policy. He’s a great friend of mine. I want really good people to go into politics and stay in politics, and he is one of them.
Question: COAG’s meeting today; what outcomes are you hopeful of seeing, tax reform particularly, do you think that there’ll be any movement there, and do you think that South Australia’s proposals could get some ground?
Christopher Pyne: Well I’ll leave the commentary on tax reform to the Prime Minister and to the Treasurer. The only point that I would make is that the- everything the Federal Government has been doing around tax reform has been so far in response to state and territories’ requests for new ways of creating revenue, and so we’ve been doing some work on their behalf. But the GST is a state and territory tax, not a Commonwealth tax. The states and territories can make their own decisions about their tax systems. They have different measures of raising tax. If they want to change those, increase those, expand them, the mix of them- that’s entirely a matter for them. What the Commonwealth mustn’t do is infantilise the states and make decisions for them, we don’t intend to do that.
Question: If there is no consensus though on GST reforms, particularly then, what’s the Federal Government’s next move, as it moves towards the election?
Christopher Pyne: Well the Government doesn’t have to change the GST. The states and territories- some premiers have asked us to change the GST, Jay Weatherill in South Australia wants an increased GST. He wants it to be 15 per cent so he can spend it on hospitals and schools. Mike Baird wants an increased GST for similar reasons, I believe, but the Commonwealth has no policy to increase the GST.
Question: So you’re satisfied with the existing federal-state tax arrangements?
Christopher Pyne: Well they’re being discussed by COAG today and they’ll be part of an ongoing discussion in the months ahead. We don’t have a policy to change the GST.
Question: Heading into the summer break, are you concerned about what the AFP investigation into the Slipper diary might find [indistinct].
Christopher Pyne: No. Anything else?
Karen Andrews: That’s it guys.
Christopher Pyne: Any questions on STEM?
Question: Actually Senator Birmingham if you could maybe just- I know you alluded to it there, but if you could maybe outline more of this STEM strategy and maybe some of the specific measures that will be involved?
Simon Birmingham: So we obviously already had a number of measures the Government was pursuing which Christopher in particular as education minister previously had championed in relation to STEM- the National Innovation and Science Agenda released this week builds on that by committing more than $50 million in additional Commonwealth funding to help advance learning of STEM subjects from preschool right through schooling so that you’re actually trying to encourage that interest at the very, very early ages. We use different technology platforms that we provide to the schooling systems to help do that. We’ll ensure that there are opportunities through summer schools for the best students to be inspired in their interest in science and maths and we’re rolling out as Karen mentioned greater opportunities for the learning and studying of coding and supporting coding clubs right around Australian schools for those opportunities for students to learn more, often outside of their regular learning hours in terms of coding.
And the education ministers today will be discussing how it is that we can make sure that the standards we expect in schools especially at the point of school completion are as high as they reasonably can be in relation to maths and science so that when school students are completing their schooling we can have confidence that they potentially- that they do have- wh
