To my ministerial colleagues, Professor Sara, Professor Doherty, Emeritus Professor Frank Fenner, other very distinguished members of the Australian scientific community and other parliamentary colleagues.
I've addressed over the years a number of scientific gatherings under different rubrics in the Great Hall. Tonight brings together those people who do the science and those people who use the science. And the great genius of the CRC concept has been to fuse those two disciplines, if I can put it that way, and make sure that the inventiveness of Australia's scientists is matched by the conversion of that inventiveness into a product and an outcome and a solution that is not only valuable in helping mankind, but is also commercially very profitable. And that's why in this Budget we're providing over $200 million for something like 71 CRCs. I was aware of the apprehension that people had about the cliff. The cliff was the focus of a number of representations that were made to me by a number of people in this room. And we endeavoured, in the Budget provision this year, to underscore the point that the commitment we have made to science is not a one-off short-lived one, but is part of a determined effort to elevate the role and the place and the centrality of science in the Australian community to the position that it does very richly deserve.
I've said on a number of occasions in the past that, apart from a reasonably halting experience with chemistry and the leaving certificate way back in the 1950s, my scientific endeavour and discipline has not been extensive. But one of the great experiences I've had as Prime Minister has been the opportunity to chair the Prime Minister's Science Innovation and Engineering Council and it's brought me into contact with some wonderful Australians and has brought home to me the enormous talent that this country has. It helped bring home to me the fact that in different ways it perhaps had not received the prominence that it deserved.
And I recognise that there are still many things that need to be done. And I think in this context, without opening up a detailed discussion about it tonight because it's not the occasion, I think the challenge of reforming and strengthening Australia's tertiary education sector is one of the important debates that this country has to have within the next few months because the central role of universities and within them the central role of science in particular, will be so important to the future of Australia. It's a trite way of putting it, but I do want to see - and I say this as self avowed cricket tragic - I do want to see a time when Australia's scientists are as revered and as honoured within the Australian community as our highly successful sportsmen and women.
The CRC success story has been quite remarkable. They were started in 1990, and I give credit to the former government for its role in their inauguration in 1990. The CRC success stories include the development of contact lenses that don't need to be taken out each night; the first all-Australian satellite in 30 years; new techniques and technologies to improve the productivity of our mining industry; new tests to speed up the detection of toxic blue-green algae and manage outbreaks and new plant breeds that are more disease-resistant and higher yielding. They're just some of the examples of what CRC's have achieved and they point the way to achievements in the future.
It is an important and quite exciting time for science policy in Australia at the moment. We are now two years into the delivery of the $3 billion