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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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SCIENCE AND RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (15:42): Before I begin my grieve today, I would like to pay tribute to Carmel Moriarty, who has been in this place since 1962, mainly with Hansard. I really take offence at what the opposition leader said, having a go at me for recognising one of the great workers in Parliament House, someone who has been here doing a fantastic job for years. Carmel began here when Thomas Playford was premier, and she then worked through the governments of Frank Walsh, Don Dunstan, Steele Hall, back to Don Dunstan and Des Corcoran, and on to the Tonkin government. Then there was John Bannon, Lynn Arnold, Dean Brown, John Olsen, Rob Kerin and the present Rann government.

I pay tribute to Carmel and thank her very much for all the great work she has done for us here. She has outlasted everyone who was here when she commenced employment at Parliament House, and she has seen a lot of changes and recorded a lot of historic moments. It has been good to see her smiling face so often. She has always been so helpful to us, chasing rushed proofs and things like that. I thank her very much for the great work that she has given everyone who has served in this house over the past 40 years.

Today I want to speak about science. We were talking about the River Murray this afternoon. Part of the answer will be political, and a big part also will be from the science community. Next month we recognise science with National Science Week. It makes me think about the great work being done in South Australia. It largely goes unrecognised, but, hopefully, next month during Science Week we will stop to think about the fantastic achievements that have been made here.

Last week, I visited SARDI and saw the work it is doing. Scientists are growing algae that we can eventually use as biofuels. I think it is fantastic that we can capture carbon that is being emitted from big polluters and whack it into the algae, which promotes its growth, and then convert it into biodiesel down the track. With the price of fuel going the way it is, I think that that really is the future and that we need to support these scientists in every way we possibly can.

At Glynde, the company Green and Gold is doing some great work on the SunCube. It has fantastic technology and is really leading the world, and I first visited it earlier this year. This week, I was talking with some very high-ranking executives from Hitachi in Japan and Emcore, a very important American company based in Albuquerque. They have developed solar cells for not just the terrestrial market but also to send into space, and these cells power satellites that go as far away as Mercury. These companies from the US and Japan are interested in what is happening here in Adelaide because we have some very smart people working on some great scientific solutions for a sustainable environment and, in turn, those benefits will flow on into the Murray.

While I was at SARDI I saw the mulloway, the kingfish and the tuna swimming around in their tanks. Just a couple of days later, I was at Arno Bay looking at the hatchery—and there is another success story in this state. In February this year, for the very first time in history, the company Clean Seas was able to close the breeding cycle, and I sat with the scientists and saw the painstaking work they have done over years and years.

They have lifted tuna by helicopter out of the sea and put them into an indoor pen, where they drop the temperature to what it would be around Tasmania in winter, and slowly, day by day, they gradually increase the temperature to what it would be off Indonesia, where the tuna go to breed. In February this year, for the first time, they had a successful breeding session in those pens in Arno Bay.

You can appreciate what a great moment that would have been for all those scientists and company directors who were involved. The birth of any child is very important but, having spent that many years and invested that much money into closing the breeding cycle, that was a miraculous moment. I pay tribute to all the scientists in South Australia for all the work they are doing because, for a sustainable society, we need them to continue that work.

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