The hand-held advanced “smart” communication devices many of us now have, and the vast and varied platforms to access information they provide us, are a great example of how such skills are being applied.

Desk-top computers, roof-top renewable energy systems, the growing role of robotics in manufacturing, breakthroughs in medical science, and the rapidly developing technology of electric cars, are others where STEM skills have produced extraordinary outcomes.

Over the next few decades around 60 per cent of new jobs are going to involve such skills. That means we need to encourage young people’s interest in these areas of study, right now. This is an urgent challenge for politicians and the scientific and education communities.

The Commonwealth’s Science and Technology Australia began the STEM Ambassador program in 2018 to ensure experts in the various STEM skills, and politicians, find ways to work together to achieve those goals.

Cowper was one of just ten electorates across Australia picked to participate and it’s terrific we were chosen to be part of the pilot program. Our STEM Ambassador is Dr Bryony Horton, an environmental scientist.

Dr Horton and I met with the joint aim of building a deeper understanding of the role and impact of STEM in Cowper, and across Australia. We established goals to enhance awareness of STEM careers, especially for women, and to highlight the role STEM skills increasingly have in futuristic technologies.

In Port, Hastings Secondary College is already showing the way to the future. Congratulations to staff and students from the college who represented our city at an international robotics competition in Houston in the US, last year, where their display of STEM skills put them in the top half of teams from around the world.