Friday, 19 August 2022

Ministers statements: Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria—Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Equality) (12:06): It is Science Week, which means that this week we are in a position to celebrate curiosity, inquiry, learning and knowledge not just around Victoria but around Australia. I want to focus today on dark matter. Over 80 per cent of all matter in the universe is made up of material that scientists have never seen. Dark matter is completely invisible. It emits no light or energy and thus cannot be detected by conventional sensors or detectors, and to that end it is a little bit like the Leader of the Opposition.

But there is some fantastic news in Stawell today. The much-anticipated Stawell Underground Physics Laboratory is officially complete. This is a $5 million partnership between Victoria and the commonwealth. What it will enable is a 1-kilometre underground laboratory to be established so that detection of dark matter has the best possible chance through a range of collaborative experiments. With stage 1 now complete, the SUPL Ltd laboratory, which is co-owned by the University of Melbourne, Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian National University and Swinburne University of Technology, along with the University of Adelaide, will come together to deliver an experiment in partnership with the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy.

This is truly a global experiment to make sure that we stand the best chance of detecting a specific particle believed to make up dark matter. This means that laboratories like SUPL will help us to uncover the secrets of the universe—to that end, a wonderful announcement indeed.