CHALLENGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

_{15 July, 2009}

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Thanks very much Professor Jaga to you and your organising committee and other distinguished guests here.

Welcome to what my Federal parliamentary colleague, Peter Lindsay calls “Paradise”.  When he’s in Canberra right down south - its very, very cold - he always tells his Parliamentary colleagues that he represents Paradise – he comes from Paradise.  So this area is often known as Paradise.

As Senator representing Queensland in the Federal Parliament and as the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia I want to add my welcome to all of you to this conference “Challenges in Environmental Science and Engineering”.

I live about an hour’s drive south of Townsville city in a town called Ayr - in an area called the Burdekin – where, according to an analysis undertaken by the Cooperative Research Centre, or CRC for Irrigation Futures and the CSIRO Land and Water, we have about 80,000 hectares of irrigated land – primarily growing sugar cane – and producing a net income of some 450 million dollars Australian every year from that crop.

This reliable source of water for that crop is provided by the Burdekin Dam – which, in itself, is a huge feat of engineering excellence – and that not only provides a reliable water supply for the cane crop and for the city of Townsville, but it has the potential in the future to produce hydro-electric power for this local area.

During last year’s wet season, the Burdekin Dam spill-over allowed a tremendous 31,000 mega litres of water a day to flow out to sea – that’s equivalent to about 2 whole Sydney Harbours every day flowing out onto the Great Barrier Reef – bringing with it sediments and nutrients and pesticides – and creating a natural sediment plume with the potential to smother corals and to add a nutrient load into the water in which the corals and associated reef organisms grow.

This type of sediment plume resulting from the natural wet season and from cultivation practices and the feral animals is repeated up and down the various rivers of the north Queensland coast.

So the environmental challenges of catchment management, water quality and managing vast volumes of storm event water are very real to us in this part of the world – so quite clearly, Townsville and James Cook University is a great place to discuss the issues I see in the program for this conference over the next few days.

Climate change modelling suggests that southern Australia will receive between 2-5% less rainfall in the next 20 years with a small increase in rainfall predicted for the north, giving the north of Australia a secure water supply for the future. 

Drought, climate change and water shortages in the south of our country makes the harnessing and storage and management our water more effectively in Northern Australia one of the most important and urgent challenges facing us – not only as northern Australians – but as a nation.

Indeed a reliable water supply, buffered against predicted rainfall changes in Northern Australia, is Northern Australia’s competitive advantage – however I think its something that we in Northern Australia have yet to fully realise.

With an abundance of water and a mosaic of suitable soils in Northern Australia we do have the potential to feed and clothe an increasingly hungry world into the future and become the source of many of Australia’s natural resource, energy and trade opportunities.

Water storage will mean new activity, it will mean engineering, it will mean putting in place essential subsidiary infrastructure, it will mean increased population in Northern Australia and it will give Australia and the world a secure source of food production – bringing with this many environmental challenges that we have to look at to ensure that any such development is ecologically sustainable – and based on sound science.

With over 40% of Australia’s landmass lying within the tropics – and, globally, the tropics being home to over half of the world’s population and around 81% of its biodiversity, Northern Australia’s world-class universities are well-placed to undertake leading edge tropical research and to contribute to some of the planet’s most rapid economic growth and challenges in engineering, the environment and associated economic and social development.

In Northern Australia we are blessed with such institutions as the James Cook University, Charles Darwin University and the University of Western Australia, the CSIRO and the Australian Institute of Marine Science to produce some of the best collaborative research on a broad range of issues which are unique to the tropics, including scientific assessment of what crops are most suited to tropical conditions – and for what regions those crops could be grown; we are also in a position to do that research on the development of climate resistant crops and technologies; the best management practices for tropical marine, riverine and coastal ecosystems, hydrology and fisheries management. 

Indeed, just yesterday I was out at James Cook University in Townsville, having a look at a very impressive project using algae to produce biofuel, animal fodder and, at the same time, sequester carbon dioxide.

There are a range of magnificent scientific and research institutions we have in Northern Australia.  I congratulate James Cook University and all of its staff in organising this conference, but more importantly for the tremendous work they do for the tropical region of our world.

We in Northern Australia can also learn from the expertise and experience of our fellow environmental and engineering scientists from around the world – and there are many of you in this room today at this conference.

Thank you very much for coming along and sharing your knowledge and expertise with us and allowing us to work with you for the benefit of mankind.

My very best wishes to you all for a productive conference, a successful conference and a conference that takes ahead mankind’s knowledge and understanding of the environment which will benefit.

And finally, can I join with others in wishing you all a very warm Northern Australian welcome.

Good luck.

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