We do this thing quite a lot actually. Most news articles that are positive will try to have some tie in with Australia to make it relevant to the readers. Maybe the bolts used to tie together the worlds highest balloon ride are made by an Australian company; they literally get as tenuous as that at times.
This is an Australian news website (run by the publicly funded national broadcaster), hence the need to tie in with an Australian angle.
It sounded weird at first, but it is a website from Australia and I guess the news agency feels proud.
I'll skip another 'Welcome to journalism' comment, and instead observe that an Australian scientist may actually be surprising news under the new government there!