Defence Industries

Ms SAVVAS (Newland) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Defence and Space Industries. Can the Treasurer update the house on South Australia's participation at the Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (14:51): I am grateful for the question from the member because, of course, as the Premier has just outlined, the opportunities in South Australia's defence industries are quite extraordinary at this point in the state's history. This is a defence industry which already employs somewhere in the order of 14,000 people here in our state, approximately half of those in the defence industries themselves aside from people who are employed here by defence forces or their subsidiaries or attached units.

As we have had for more than 20 years here in South Australia, it is a strong view of a state Labor government that we want these industries to grow. So it was a great privilege to represent the state and our defence industries at the biennial Land Forces 2024 conference held in Melbourne. In fact, during the last sitting week—and I thank the house for giving me the time away from sittings to go to the conference. My understanding is that I didn't miss much last sitting week; it was all business as usual over there.

We were able to take more than 60 companies, 67 in fact, South Australian companies to exhibit at Land Forces and demonstrate their wares not only for defence primes but also for those responsible for procurement in our armed services. That is the highest number that we have ever taken over. This is a conference that South Australia has taken a delegation to since 2010, and 14 years ago at that conference there were only 12 exhibitors from South Australian defence industries, so you can see the momentum that South Australia has in terms of taking these companies over to win more business. They showcase their offerings, they connect with defence primes and tier 1 suppliers, reinforcing, of course, our position as the nation's defence state.

But it has also been particularly important, as we have a federal government right now that is focusing so much on investing more and more money on defence procurement and matériel and spending that money in Australia, that we highlight the opportunities and the precincts that we have here in South Australia—Edinburgh Parks, Technology Park, the Tonsley Innovation District and, of course, Lot Fourteen—and our commitment to supporting our defence forces and the businesses that supply them to grow those operations here in South Australia.

I was pleased to meet and directly engage with nearly 30 of these companies while I was over there, including Ultra Maritime; Stärke-AMG; Silentium Defence; Acacia Systems; Aerobond Defence; APC Technology; Southern Launch; Aurizn; Axiom Precision Manufacturing; Daronmont Technologies; Para Bellum Solutions; Codan, of course, a well-established South Australian company; CGI; Dedicated Systems; a company from the most important electorate in the state, Hendon Semiconductors; MTE; Myriota; QuantX Labs; Cold Logic; Micro-X, of course, established at the Tonsley Innovation District; the Defence Teaming Centre, the industry representative; Workspace Commercial Furniture; Lightforce; and Humanihut. These were not even half of the firms that attended Land Forces. You can see the extraordinary capability that our economy provides to our defence forces, and we are very much looking forward to growing our defence industry into the future.