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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2704 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

After the war, Sir Mark came to live permanently in Canberra. He was both director of the Research School of Physical Sciences and head of its particle physics department. He spent over a decade constructing a proton synchrotron. Sir Mark was also a founder and inaugural president of the Academy of Science and was Australia's leading statesman of science in the post-war period.

Following his retirement, Sir Mark's public career was far from over. In 1971 he became the Governor of South Australia, a position he held until 1976. Sir Mark was a world-class physicist who made a significant contribution to the causes of nuclear disarmament, conservation of the environment and alternative energy sources.

Sir Mark's distinguished career at home and overseas highlighted his contribution to this nation. He may have been controversial at times, but he could lay claim to being one of Australia's great scientists. His death at the age of 98 marked the passing of a truly great Australian.

I am sure all members will join me in acknowledging Sir Mark's great contribution to Australia as a scientist, a physicist and a public figure and in expressing our sympathy to Sir Mark's family.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition): I would like to join the Chief Minister in this condolence motion on the death of Sir Mark Oliphant. As the Chief Minister has said, Sir Mark Oliphant was a great Australian, a scientist who possessed both incredible skill and an unfailing conscience.

Sir Mark, the eldest of five sons, was born in 1901 in Kent Town, near Adelaide in South Australia. He was interested in pursuing a career in medicine or chemistry and in 1919 began studying at the University of Adelaide. However, his physics teacher at the time, Dr Roy Burdon, showed him, in the words of Sir Mark, "the extraordinary exhilaration there was in even minor discoveries in the field of physics".

Sir Mark made his most significant personal contributions to science during his time at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University in England. He started research in the field of nuclear physics, working on the artificial disintegration of the atomic nucleus and positive ions. During this period, many exciting discoveries were being made at the Cavendish Laboratory and the field of nuclear physics was rapidly expanding. Sir Mark discovered new forms of hydrogen and helium. He also designed and built complicated particle accelerators, in particular a positive ion accelerator. All this work laid the foundation for the development of nuclear weapons.

Sir Mark also played a major role in developing microwave radar and, during the Second World War, he led a team of British physicists who were collaborating with American scientists on the development of the atomic bomb. However, Sir Mark publicly opposed the development of atomic weapons as a misuse of atomic power. I think that members would be aware that, following the bombing of Hiroshima, Sir Mark became an outspoken opponent of the use of nuclear weapons, a position he maintained throughout his life.

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