Space Industries

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Minister for Investment and Trade, Minister for Small Business, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Health Industries, Minister for Veterans' Affairs) (14:25): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M.L.J. HAMILTON-SMITH: The South Australian government has this week welcomed more than 5,100 delegates to the 68^th International Astronautical Congress, the biggest in the congress's history. We welcomed the heads of international space agencies, key investors and some of the sharpest minds in global engineering. They are building one of the most dynamic industry sectors in the world's history. Seven hundred South Australian school students have joined them at this week's congress, and they can see an exciting future for themselves in this industry.

At the opening of the congress, the commonwealth government confirmed its intention to develop a national space agency, a concept fully embraced and encouraged by the South Australian government in its submission to the commonwealth's current review of Australia's space industry capability. We are best placed to take advantage of the commonwealth's commitment here in South Australia because we have established our own South Australian Space Industry Centre (SASIC), with more than $4 million committed to training scholarships, space incubation services and a space accelerator program. Details can be found sasic.sa.gov.au. That fund is supported by a $200 million job fund.

The establishment of the SASIC follows last year's release of South Australia's Space Innovation and Growth Strategy Action Plan is complemented by the production of a South Australia's Space Capability Directory that lists all the companies in South Australia in this industry. With a dedicated portfolio, a dedicated agency, a strategy and an industry directory, South Australia has led the nation on this issue.

Yesterday's grand opening of the congress showed South Australia at its finest. Delegates arrived via direct flights from Europe via the Middle East, a tribute to the good work of my friend the Minister for Tourism, and they came through direct flights from Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Guangzhou. The city's capacity to handle the enormous number of delegates, whilst also basking in the buzz of Adelaide Football Club's success on the sporting field, shows us in a wonderful light. We are a mature city, an intelligent city and a vibrant city.

On the business front, we have already signed key agreements with the German space agency, the United Arab Emirates space agency and the Italian space agency, and we are in negotiation with a number of others about growing jobs and investment through this exciting opportunity. Our business leaders are doing deals with Europe's space agency, major corporations and cutting-edge developers.

The congress takes me back to 2002, when Adelaide hosted the 13^th World Congress on Information Technology, opened by US president Bill Clinton. At the time, I was minister for innovation, and I am pleased to remind the house that the IT congress was underpinned by political bipartisanship. I told the house at the time that we were on the edge of some fascinating developments, with expected advances in computer technology in the years ahead.

It is worth reminding the house that global experts at the 2002 conference predicted that by the year 2010 the industry would have developed a computer with the processing power of the human brain and that by the year 2015 computer capability would have developed to incorporate consciousness. That consciousness, in effect, would be focused on the ability of the computer to self-learn. What is coming out of the IAC conference this week is that 15 years on we are precisely where those experts said we would be. Artificial intelligence and advanced processing power are the building blocks that today's developers are using to move to the next frontier. Adelaide University alone, supported by the other two universities, is in the top three category in the AI field.

The space sector is a major player in communications, IT, medical science, mining and agriculture. It touches us all. To get a sense of how exciting these developments are for young South Australians, look at these 10 job vacancies appearing today on an online space industry site: cybersecurity analyst; Earth observation data engineer; payload system engineer; IT medical support officer; researcher, scientific study of mission total mass loss (TML); knowledge management engineer; space applications developer; climate product and radiative transfer expert; ground stations engineer; and spacecraft communications expert.

Mapping global supply chains and unlocking job and investment opportunities for South Australian companies will be a key role of the new space agency and the state industry centre. The state government thanks the federal government and the federal opposition for their bipartisan commitments made yesterday. We thank the International Astronautical Federation for their confidence in South Australia by being here. We welcome the 4,470 delegates and the 700 school students who are part of this exciting adventure. What a great future awaits them in South Australia, where tomorrow starts today.