Journalist: I'm now going to welcome federal Assistant Minister for Science Karen Andrews, welcome to the show.

Karen Andrews: Good morning it's a pleasure to be here.

Journalist: Now you've come up here because at the moment there's a pretty interesting vessel, research vessel that's docked in Darwin this morning, tell us a little bit about it.

Karen Andrews:  Yes, well Joides Resolution, is the vessel, and Australia partly funds it, along with a lot of other international countries as well. So it's a fantastic research vessel and it's just been off the Western Australian coast, predominantly in the last two months.

What they've been doing is taking core samples, and some of the samples that they have been taking are from 2.2 kilometres below.

Journalist: That's some drill bit isn't it?

Karen Andrews: It is, and as an engineer myself, the engineering that would have to go into getting those samples is just amazing. Look what they're really looking at is climate change, looking at the sediment to see what has happened over the last few million years. So it's a fantastic learning experience for all of the scientists that were on the vessel.

So they have some new graduates, some early career research scientists as well too, and they're working side by side with some very experienced scientists and learning so much about what's happening on this expedition off the west coast of Australia. They were looking at reefs, they found, and were able to positively identify a ghost reef. So a reef that died millions of years ago, so it's just been fabulous about what they've found.

Journalist: Yes, it's fabulous, taking cores you can discover just so much about the past, the ice of course, in the Antarctic, have found some interesting results, however this one is off north Australia. There've been a few ice ages, a few movements, volcanic circumstances, so that would be really interesting to read the information.

Karen Andrews: It will and they're certainly looking to get some more information about monsoons, in particular, with the sediment run off they're picking up in the core samples too, and I know for all Territorians, that is something that's going to be very valuable and they have a keen interest in knowing more about that which is great.

Journalist: Well they are saying that the monsoon will be late coming, so it is important. So while you're here you’re probably going to go see the Vice Chancellor of the University?

Karen Andrews: Absolutely. One of the things I'm doing in my role is trying to build stronger links between universities and industry so that we can get our researchers out into industry so that they can get some practical experiences and share their knowledge of their research with industry. So that we can innovate, grow our businesses and make them stronger.

Journalist: And yes make that connection. We have a wonderful research branch here, one looking at bacteria that eats rust, which is obviously for the offshore stuff. That is just so brilliant. They’re the sort of things that industry needs to know about, and the people doing it need to know exactly what the problems are on the ground.

Karen Andrews: Exactly, there's some fantastic work that's been done, and one of the things with science is, that everyone agrees that yes we should be doing science and are interested in hearing all the different things that are happening, but it's not always front of mind with people, and what I am trying to do is make science exciting again.

For people like myself who love science, and I can see you smiling so you're obviously on the same page as me …

Journalist: Well my mum was a great science fiction fan, and I also had a science teacher who was really enthusiastic and made it so interesting and you couldn't wait until the next time you sat down and had a lecture about something, but today we had a satellite launched that's going to provide high speed communications for people away from the fibre optic cables, brilliant stuff, science has so many practical uses.

Karen Andrews: It certainly does.

Journalist: People say we're falling behind a bit? They say we used to be right at the top when it came to science and research in Australia, is that just a myth or is it something that's real?

Karen Andrews: It depends I guess what you measure. I think one of the things we have to work out is what does success look like for us. What are we hoping to achieve and how will we know when we get there. We have some fantastic people working in science now, we need to create opportunities for them to reach their full potential. But we also know that 75 per cent of the jobs of the future are going to require people that have science, technology, engineering and maths skills. So we have to make sure that we have that pipeline of students coming from the very early years, as early as kindergarten, but definitely from years 5 to 8. Engaging those students in science and making sure they take an active interest and follow STEM careers.

Journalist: In fact it's interesting isn't it because the jobs we're talking about we don't even know what they're going to be. We don't train now for a career in a certain area, we train for the ability of what you can do in the future to answer some of our problems. It's a wonderful place to be.

Karen Andrews: It is, and if you look back at the jobs of 20 years ago, now let's pick personal trainers, who would have thought 20 years ago that there would have been careers for people in personal training and now there are so many people doing so well in that space and they are highly valued.

Journalist: That's because people like me want to live a bit longer, and we want to enjoy life.

Karen Andrews: That's exactly right, it's about quality of life, and speaking to the Chief Economist from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, he said increasingly over time we will be looking at quality of life factors as well too, and engaging people to help us maximise opportunities on a personal level. So personal trainers are right up there.

Journalist: Look at this studio it's all computerised, it's all digital, there's not a record in the building it's all totally changed.

Karen Andrews: We know that the future is going to hold many technological advances ...

Journalist: Do we have enough people at school studying in those areas who will be able to take advantage of those opportunities.

Karen Andrews: The short answer is no.

Journalist: How do we get them?

Karen Andrews: We have to inspire these kids, and that's where vessels such as the Joides Resolution, when they come in, it gives people the opportunity to come in, like here in Darwin, so they can hear about what they are doing and interact with some of the scientists. But on that vessel they also have someone whose role is to be a science communicator. What he has been doing, so it was Tom on the last expedition, there's another one coming through on the new one, he's been interacting with schools around the world. So you can actually through the internet connect and see what's been done on the ship, and effectively have a lesson broadcast from the ship directly into classrooms. Now how inspiring would that be for kids to just see a core sample coming out, and say well here's a piece of coral that's probably two and a half maybe three million years old, and here it is in this sediment that we've been able to extract.

Journalist: Fantastic, and they can tell you what the weather was like in that time, they can tell you what was in the air, levels of oxygen that kind of thing, carbon dioxide.

Karen Andrews: Exactly, that was one of the things that we were shown today, when they were looking at the sediment and the monsoons, and you could actually see where the climate had changed over the millions of years before us too, where there had been quite different climatic activity.

Journalist: We're going to have to say good bye but I'd love to keep on talking, great talking, and please enjoy your time here in Darwin, and please pop in when you're next in town.

Karen Andrews: I certainly will.

Journalist: That was Karen Andrews, the new Assistant Minister for Science and I think she's going to be someone who's pretty innovative for that portfolio, and we want to see more people take a great interest in what's going to make Australia a better place in the future.

[ENDS]