Hannover Messe

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:44): My question is to the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Can the minister update the council about the state government's presence at the global advanced manufacturing exhibition at Hannover Messe in early April?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:44): I thank the honourable member for his question.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! I can't hear the minister.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: Thank you, Mr President, for your protection. I thank the honourable member for his question and his ongoing interest in advanced manufacturing. Indeed, on 31 March to 5 April, I travelled to Europe on a business mission centred around furthering trade and investment opportunities among some of our key sectors, including advanced manufacturing, defence, agribusiness and the space industries.

The centrepiece of the trip was South Australia's attendance at the Hannover Messe: Industrie 4.0, one of the world's leading trade shows for industrial technology, held at the Hanover Fairground, Hanover, Lower Saxony. This year it was opened by the German Chancellor, Dr Angela Merkel, with the theme being industrial intelligence.

The exhibition ran from 1 to 5 April and more than 215,000 people attended to see the enormous range of new technologies and capabilities on display. Spread across 27 separate industrial hangars, it is difficult to really convey the size of this particular exhibition to the chamber today. It was bigger than anything I had ever seen before.

Artificial intelligence, automation, robotics, machine learning, big data, advanced communication technology, defence, space, energy production, energy storage, renewables—you name it, it was there at Hannover Messe. Some of the world's largest advanced manufacturing companies, such as Siemens, Bosch, LG and thousands more, had their own very impressive stands showcasing the future of manufacturing and, in many ways, the future of work.

South Australia had our own stand at Messe. It was the first time ever and we were the only state to have one. Interestingly, Austrade had their own stand, but we had a much larger presence and so South Australia became almost the de facto Australian stand for the week. Our state did have a significant advantage at our stand: we had the Brabham BT62 supercar. It was pride of place in the centre of the booth and served as the perfect drawcard to the passer-by inquiring about the car, where it was manufactured and its features. It was a fantastic way to showcase the manufacturing capability of South Australia in one package and illustrated what can be done in our great state.

As part of the visit to Messe, I was also able to meet with many companies interested in doing business in South Australia and explain to them the new-found confidence in the state under the Marshall Liberal government. The companies we met with were Pilz around automation, Schaeffler around advanced mining equipment and manufacturing such as bearings, Optimum around smart production lines, and Continental.

I thought they only made soup here in Australia, but Continental is a global company making mining technology and renewables, pipes and tyres and hoses. They were a particularly interesting company to meet. They were very keen to hear about the opportunities and how they can get involved in South Australia's future, in particular in the landing pad that we have announced for companies to try to enter this market.

I was also given a tour of the Siemens booth by the Siemens Australia executive general manager, Mr Michael Freyny, and was able to witness how they go about nurturing start-up businesses within their organisations and their very interesting work on hydrogen. With South Australia's multibillion-dollar defence spend over the coming decades, as well as our own expertise in renewables, mining and agribusiness, and the enormous opportunities that the National Space Agency affords us, the state is uniquely positioned to tap into the expertise at Messe and build business connections to facilitate investment in South Australia.

While I was only able to attend the Messe for a single day as part of a wider trip, the team from DTTI was there for the whole conference with a number of South Australian companies such as Fox3D, Rowlands, Dematec and Dematec Automation and more. It was the first time that South Australia has had a fully fledged presence at this exhibition, and it is a space that has been largely unattended by Australia and South Australia in the past. With so much uncertainty in the EU and the UK around Brexit, it was a good time for us to make our presence felt in this very important market. If we can build enough momentum in this sector in the years ahead, Hannover Messe is keen to look at Australia being a partner country down the line.

Many thanks go to the hardworking team in the department who brought the week together and spent many hours discussing significant opportunities in South Australia at Hannover Messe. My thanks also go to Dan Marks and the team from FusionCapital for bringing the Brabham BT62 to the stand for the week. As I said earlier, it was a great attraction and a way to draw people to the stand to talk to them in more detail about the great opportunities here in South Australia.