E&OE...................................................................................................
Well, thank you very much Senator Minchin, to my other ministerial
and parliamentary colleagues. To Professor Stocker, to Martin Green
and Stuart Wenham the joint winners of the Australia Prize for 1999.
To Tim Besley who chaired the selection committee, ladies and gentlemen.
I do regard this as one of the occasions of the year and it's
an opportunity here in the National Capital in the Federal Parliament
to pay homage and pay our respects to and, very importantly, honour
people who have made a particular contribution to science. The connection
between Australian achievement and science is a very long and honourable
one. Names such as Eccles and Oliphant and Macfarlane Burnet and many
others come off the tongue. And the 1997 Australian of the Year, Dr
Peter Doherty, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology
called it, I think, very appropriately the enterprise in the adventure
of those people who dared to discover. And in a speech that he made
recently he described the special excitement of being involved in
discovering something in going somewhere where nobody had been before.
And I think that encapsulates the experience and the feelings of so
many people who have been involved in the discipline of science.
It is true that as a person trained in the law who has turned to politics,
I come ill-prepared in the sense of intellectual discipline for science.
But I have to say to you that one of the more stimulating and exciting
experiences I have had as Prime Minister is to chair several times
a year what is now called the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering
and Innovation Council. This is a body that brings together the best
and the brightest that Australia has in this field. And we sit around
the Cabinet table for a few hours, normally on a Friday morning, and
to me it's a great revelation, it's a reminder of the enormous
resources of intellectual power that Australia possesses in this area.
And it's also a reminder to me of how important science is for
the future of Australia.
And can I interpolate on a personal note how much I have valued the
work of the Chief Scientist of the Commonwealth, Dr Stocker, over
the last two-and-a-half years. He has been the Chief Executive Officer
of the Prime Minister's Council, he has interpreted much of what
has gone before that Council for me and he has helped me enjoy very,
very much the experience that has added to the stimulation that I
derive from the exposure to the magnificent work of the people who
make up that Council.
And I want to join Senator Minchin in paying tribute to his work as
the Chief Scientist, thanking him and wishing him well in his future
scientific and business career. He reminded me that this gathering
takes place at a very significant moment when a scientist has been
appointed only yesterday as the Chief Executive of Australia's
largest corporation Telstra. And, of course, as Peter Doherty again
reminded us recently Australia is probably the only nation on earth
that was discovered in the course of a scientific expedition.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the two gentlemen that we are honouring
tonight for their work in photovoltaeics, Martin Green and Stuart
Wenham, have won world renowned in a field that all of us will acknowledge
is tremendously significant to our future. There is, I am assured,
no truth in the rumour that they were two members of that raiding
party at Kirribilli House some time 18 months ago but was endeavouring
to press upon me certain views about solar energy. But what they have
succeeded in doing is to win world renowned and world respect in a
field of endeavour where the research had lain stagnant for a period
of some 10 or 15 years. And as you saw in that excellent video their
contribution is world class, their achievements have earned great
respect for them personally, they reflect very favourably on the University
of New South Wales and the support and cooperation of that University.
And I notice I think in the audience tonight the current and at least
one former Vice Chancellor of that University. And the contribution
of their research teams should also be honoured and I know when they
speak they will have something to say about it.
But it is to me as Prime Minister of Australia a source of immense
pride and I know for all Australians that we find within our 18 plus
million people, people of such continuing excellence in areas of science.
There is, of course, enormous potential for the field of research
in which Martin and Stuart have been involved. The potential for Australia
is immense, the potential revenue to be earned, the important commercial
as well as scientific contribution that both of them have made is
something that we honour here tonight. And it is important as we honour
their contribution that we recognise the important linkages between
the pure research and also the commercial utilisation of that research.
And one of the things that we have been able to do with some success
in Australia is to bring those two together.
But it is important that the Government ensure that all of the policies
that bear on the successful protection as well as the development
of Australia's intellectual capital that all of those policies
that come to bear on that intellectual capital be kept constantly
under review. And one of the valuable things that have come out of
the meetings of the Prime Minister's Science Council is a reminder
to me and to my ministerial colleagues of how precious is Australia's
intellectual capital, of how the care and the nurture and the protection
all over the world of the intellectual property of Australia is a
special challenge. And it will be an even greater challenge as we
move into the 21st Century. It has become clich, of course,
to talk about knowledge-based industries, it has become a clich to
talk about how important is knowledge-based employment. But as we
move into the 21st Century it will become even more important
and it will become even more incumbent upon governments to ensure
that the intellectual property of the Australian nation is fully protected.
In awarding jointly the Australia Prize tonight to Professor Green
and to Professor Wenham I am inviting them to join a very significant,
a very distinguished list of great Australians who have made a particular,
indeed an outstanding contribution to the field of science. They have
brought great dignity, they have brought great prestige and great
esteem to their own chosen discipline, they have been champions in
that discipline and most importantly of all they have made all of
this field even prouder still to be Australians. They have been great
and outstanding Australians. I congratulate both of them, I compliment
their research teams and I invite both of them to come forward to
accept their presentations. Thank you.
[ends]