Ms JANN McFARLANE (7:10 PM) —Today is Science Meets Parliament Day, and I was pleased to meet with, and be briefed by, two of the visiting scientists, Professor Tony Tate, from Murdoch University, and Dr Alison Garton, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Psychologists Society. As representatives of the science community and of their peak body, the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, FASTS, they were excellent advocates. Their letter offering to brief me caught my attention with the statement:

I agree with this outlook, and I was impressed by the case they have put together about what the parliament could be doing that would benefit all Australia. The scientists say:

I draw the attention of the House to a booklet entitled Innovation: Unlocking the future, which came from the Innovation Summit. I am saddened by the parlous state of research and development in Australia. Page 13 of the Innovation Summit report shows Australia listed 18th out of 24 countries, and it shows our business expenditure on research and development as a percentage of GDP. The international comparison is between 0.5 and one per cent, and that has been declining for the past 10 years. The scientists are concerned about it and we in the House should be concerned about it too. The 10 top issues facing us, according to the scientists, are:

To do this, of course, requires money. The scientists, the Australian people and the opposition see that we will not be a knowledge nation unless we greatly increase Australia's contribution to science, particularly to research and development. Research funding has decreased over the past 10 years. In business, investment in research and development has declined since 1995-96. The scientists attribute a lot of that to the cut in the 150 per cent tax concession for research and development. If we are going to unlock the future, we also need to look at the models we are developing and that operate in Australia, which underpin our future scientists and the development of future scientists. That includes looking at the school model, particularly the year 12 model.

Focusing on the international benchmark of year 12 retention as a sign that things are happening has proven to be not justified. The number of children in year 12 who intend to go on to university are a minority. We need to focus on alternative models like the one in Mandurah, where after year 10, years 11 and 12 are incorporated with TAFE on a university campus on a separate site, so that young people can explore the career or job they want, particularly with science, through alternative kinds of education. This has proved much more productive in keeping enthusiastic young people involved in science and going on to get science degrees.

The other thing we must do with the knowledge nation is to move away from short-term funding. The scientists are very concerned that we have continued a pattern of funding things for no more than three years. If we are going to develop big picture ideas and visions, and if we are going to commit to long-term research, this is the path we must follow. (Time expired)