(generated from captions) # Advance Australia Fair VOICE-OVER: Here is
the Australia Day message from Governor-General Quentin Bryce. My warmest greetings to you. I hope you've had
a lovely Australia Day, a day for us to reflect on the vibrant multicultural country
we share, a day, too, when we acknowledge
outstanding contributions to our community made by men
and women in every field. This year, Professor Brian Schmidt,
Nobel Prize astrophysicist, is among those honoured. His achievements throw sharp focus
on scientists across our country grappling with the big issues
that confront us. We have never
needed our scientists more. Some are household names - Professor Ian Frazer,
his cervical cancer vaccine, Professor Graeme Clark,
that magic cochlear implant, Professor Elizabeth Blackburn's
Nobel Prize research on telomerase. Our scientists
and their highly skilled teams are in labs, in the field,
in Antarctica, late at night and in the frosty dawn, exploring, learning, and often tenaciously
working through years of toil, towards that light bulb moment. This summer,
precise meteorological data is helping our fire crews
and residents plan in advance for bushfires. Technology through our smartphones,
wi-fi and even Twitter is playing a part in alerting us
to danger. (Siren wails) My friends, at Government House,
I meet thousands of schoolkids. I ask them,
'What are you best at at school?' The most popular responses
are maths, and then science. These are our young scientists
of the future. As parents and grandparents, we must fuel their curiosity
and their enthusiasm from primary school right through. Teachers have a responsibility
to fan that enthusiasm, to encourage those kids
to stretch themselves, to explore. Gold is way heavier than silver if
you've got an equal amount of it. Teachers are the portal to
ambitious futures for our children. Number ten in the periodic table,
is it?Yep. We need more teachers
who care deeply about science. A couple of extra drops
of acid in. The world of science
is a world of big questions - climate change, disease and ageing, water, energy, food security. It's never been easier
to start looking for the answers. The internet, itself the product
of a brilliant scientific idea, is often our first stop. If you're using wi-fi, you can thank
our Australian CSIRO scientists.

Technology has transformed how we
work, communicate, play and discover. We are turning to the business world to help translate those light bulb
moments into commercial success. Around $27 billion is spent
on research in Australia. We need to grow linkages
between our research strengths and our capacity to take innovation
in products and services to the market. International studies
link scientific innovation with economic prosperity. In the US, it's estimated
that science has produced about half of all economic growth
in the last 50 years My friends,
we may not all be scientists, but we are all science participants. Each of us has a part to play in how science shapes our future
and our legacy. That legacy depends on
today's children, and a commitment from their families,
their schools and teachers to encourage them to become
tomorrow's science leaders and innovators. They may well change our world. As we all head back to school
and work after Australia Day, I wish you an enriching
and rewarding year in 2013.

Closed Captions by CSI

P This Program is Captioned Live.

Tonight - a path of destruction from mini tornadoes to flooding rains, the sunshine State becomes the saturated State.Pomp and pageantry and the barbie breakfast, celebrating the national holiday Australian style.Honouring great Australians from all walks of life.And Andy Murray books his spot in the Australian Open final.

Good evening, Siobhan Heanue with ABC News. First tonight a series of tornadoes has caused widespread destruction and injured dozens of people in communities near Bundaberg in Queensland's Wide Bay region. The first of 3 tornadoes struck at Bargara on the coast about midday. Two people are in a critical condition and a number of others have been injured.A triage centre was set up to cope with the number of casualties. Scores of homes and businesses were damaged by the winds and heavy rain. Two other nearby coastal communities were also hit by savage storm cells this afternoon.A little further north in central Queensland Gladstone residents are also on high alert after ex-tropical cyclone Oswald dumped 500 mm of rain on the city.Hundreds of home owners have been told their properties could be flooded as the region's dams start to overflow.Gladstone's swollen Boyne River destroyed boat ramps.Coming along here and seeing this this morning it's pretty disastrous really.I've been here 11 years and I haven't seen the water rise that high, so yeah, I'm real concerned.There were anxious moments for skippers too.So this one, I think, is a bit scary.SES volunteers door knocked residents warning them that as many as 400 Gladstone properties could be inun dated.I saw one of my mates from SES and said we might go under so we basically moved everything in the house to as high as we can.We've packed up and heading off.The Premier wasn't playing it down.We have a situation now at Gladstone with a disaster declaration. The issue there is that we have had significant inflows to Awoonga dam and that dam has at least 5.5 metres going across the spillway.He also warned residents in the nearby Callide Valley.We had issues with the Callide dam and discharge of flood Waters into Callide Creek and that's creating a flooding situation for two small communities, Jambin and Goovigen and there have been evacuations there.Oswald dumped up to 500 mm in Gladstone, its effects have also been felt in Hervey