Will, Emma (SEN)
From:	Sharon Johnson [sjohnson@physics.adelaide.edu.au]
Sent:	Thursday, 12 April 2001 3:15 PM
To:	eet.sen@aph.gov.au
Cc:	athomas@physics.adelaide.edu.au
Subject:	Senate Enquiry - Public Universities - Australian Higher Education needs
The Secretary
Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business
 And Education Referenes Committee
Suite S1.61 Parliament House
Canberra

Email: eet.sen@aph.gov.au

Re:  Senate enquiry into capacity of public universities to meet
Australia’s higher education needs

Dear Sir/Madam,

I attach a letter written to the Prime Minister in September last year,
in regard to the “Chance to Change”.  This letter contains information
vital to the present enquiry.  In particular, it highlights both the
general importance of the discipline of physics in any healthy
university system and its present disastrous state in Australia.  None
of the damage has been deliberate; it is simply unplanned collateral
damage resulting from the financial squeeze placed on tertiary
education.  Nevertheless, if a foreign power had so damaged a crucial
component of our system of knowledge creation, innovation and capacity
for national defense, it could well have led to war.

This situation cannot be allowed to continue.  I quote from the February
2001 editorial of Scientific American: “30 percent of this country’s
(USA) gross national product derives from instruments that operate on
quantum principles: the transistor, MRI scanners, superconducting
magnets and much more.”  The large-scale destruction of the physical
sciences in our universities bodes poorly for our future economic
competitiveness.

I would be pleased to appear in person if this is considered
appropriate.

Anthony W. Thomas FAA
Chair of the National Committee for Physics
Director, CSSM
Tel: 08 8303 3547
Fax: 08 8303 3551