Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wheat is Australia's second largest export and all the indications are that 2013 will be a bumper harvest. I want to take this opportunity to remember one of the individuals whose generosity has done so much to make Australia competitive in this area.

Recently, I was able to attend the Waite Centenary dinner at Urrbrae House, on 6 November. In 1913 Peter Waite gave the University of Adelaide South Australia's largest ever individual bequest, when he gave large portions of his property to the University of Adelaide.

The Waite Agricultural Research Institute was established on this land in 1924. Since then, the Waite Campus has built an international reputation for its strengths in    plant science and breeding, particularly cereal crops; landscape and soil science; and wine and viticulture research.

People who are involved in the agricultural research area tell me that the Waite research institute stands with the University of California, Davis, as the two premier agricultural research institutes in the world. The partners for Waite include the University of Adelaide; the CSIRO; the South Australian Research and Development Institute; the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics Pty Ltd; the Australian Plant Phenomics facility, also known as the plant accelerator; Australian Grains Technology; Arris; the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls; Food SA; the Australian Wine Research Institute; and the Australian Genome Research Facility Ltd.

Waite represents a premier example of a cluster and all those host organisations really do foster innovation. There are 12 world-class researcher organisations and centres on the one 300-acre site. There are 1,100 research and technical staff, including a very strong component of international PhD students and postdoctoral students. There are 845 research and agricultural students. They spend $100 million on research each year. There is $265 million of research and teaching infrastructure and 80 per cent of southern Australian cereal production comes from Waite-developed varieties. There is also significant infrastructure, including the state-of-the-art plant accelerator. In 1913 Peter Waite wrote to the SA Premier offering his land. He said:

Waite today is an excellent facility. The precinct is world renowned. I am very pleased to commemorate this centenary of the Waite bequest.