Blinded by the Light

In the past decade since the first beam was achieved at the Australian Synchrotron, accelerator physics in Australia has experienced a renaissance. As a landmark national facility, the Australian Synchrotron attaracts thousands of users each year and generates hundreds of scientific journal publications. A superb operational and reliability record has allowed the accelerator physics group to conduct research and join international collaborations. To consilidate resources and strengtheng the local community, in 2010 all four national accelerator facilities - including electron and ion machines - joined to form the Australian Collaboration for Accelerator Science (ACAS). One of the aims of ACAS is to grow the next generation of accelerator scientists for research, industry and medicine. This talk will cover some history of accelerators in Australia, the present ACAS activities and touch on some plans for the future.