Tuesday, 13 August 2024

Ministers statements: Swinburne University

Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Regional Development) (12:20): I rise to update the chamber on our government’s investment in cutting-edge research at our world-leading universities. Last week I visited Swinburne’s $6 million LivingAT Facility, Australia’s first fully accessible co-designed research space. Swinburne is developing exciting new technology, including high-tech prototype wheelchairs, to improve mobility and quality of life. Swinburne’s partnership with Yooralla, a disability support provider, is ensuring co-design with people with lived experience of disability. On this visit I met PhD candidate Mark Hanson, who is developing a game-changing training program to help airline staff better meet the needs of travellers with disabilities. As a wheelchair user himself, Mark is applying his experience to ensure that other Victorians can enjoy far more accessible transport options.

Swinburne’s LivingAT Facility also features the Ngarrgu Tindebeek supercomputer, whose name means ‘knowledge of the void’ in the local Woiwurrung language. This incredible $5.2 million machine is financially supported by this state government, and it is enabling groundbreaking research into space, the mysteries of the human brain and complex ecosystems on earth. While I was there, I met Joe, who has been working on computers and supercomputer technology at Swinburne for 34 years. What an achievement, Joe. I am proud to say that our $350 million Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund has supported Swinburne’s research lab.

This is another excellent example of the Allan Labor government partnering with our higher education system to improve lives for the better, to train our local workforce for jobs of the future and to make our economy more accessible to all Victorians.