Professor Brian Schmidt

Well, I was pretty disappointed.

I worked for really since I won a Nobel Prize in 2011 through 15 science ministers.

That's how many I've had since 2011, one a year.

Arthur Sinodinos, as the science minister, created a special relationship with ESO.

where we transformed Australian astronomy to allow that to happen.

We divested in a bunch of things.

And when the legislation was introduced, it was specifically with the intent to join ESO at the end of the 10-year partnership.

I will say when a decision was made to not do that, that was disappointing.

Now, it's expensive.

There's no doubt.

We are one of the best astronomical communities in the world, and it is an appropriate investment, and we would say definitely well worth the money.

Richard Holden, who I worked with, went through and looked at what is the return.

And it's about $330 million a year is what astronomy returns to the Australian economy.

Now, it's not direct announceables like ministers like.

That's not what astronomy is about.

It's looking at the big thing.

But the spillover benefits for Australia are huge.

So the most disappointing thing for me is ministers get to make hard decisions.

And as a vice chancellor of ANU, I had to make a lot of hard decisions.

What I think is not okay is that four years of the current government to make a decision, and we have a decision, but there's no plan B, and we haven't even talked about a plan B. There is no plan for a plan B. And that, I don't think, is okay.