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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-12-02 Daily Xml
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High-Tech Sector

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Can the minister please update the house on what the Marshall Liberal government has achieved in attracting high-tech jobs since the last election?

The Hon. S.J.R. PATTERSON (Morphett—Minister for Trade and Investment) (14:25): I thank the member for MacKillop for his question. There is certainly a lot of positive news happening in this space at the moment. I have talked previously in parliament about some of the massive high-tech companies that are coming here, world-class companies attracted to South Australia, turning South Australia into a high-tech hub in areas such as defence, space, medical technologies, creative industries.

Those productivity gains that tech makes are also making great improvements in food and agriculture, and also energy and mining in the areas of the regions that the member for MacKillop is very interested in. It's really good. We are the defence state, we are the nation's space capital and we are fast becoming the digital state as well.

As I said, since coming to government we have attracted many world-class companies here, such as Accenture; AWS, the second biggest company in the world; and Google, the fourth biggest company in the world. MTX have come along as well, as have Nokia 5G in the area of space and also Microsoft Azure Space. These are big companies coming here to South Australia, and that is bringing in other companies' interest as well. Consulting firms, such as PwC, 300 jobs—

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan: Motorola?

The Hon. S.J.R. PATTERSON: Yes, Deloitte is coming here—500 jobs is fantastic, and that's why only just recently—

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister has the call.

The Hon. S.J.R. PATTERSON: —I was really pleased to hear that a massive US global tech firm Cognizant are going to set up here, creating 1,600 jobs, highly skilled careers here in South Australia. They are going to be creating a global digital centre here in South Australia in areas such as artificial intelligence and in areas such as 5G, space technologies and also data analytics—all areas where South Australia has a competitive advantage not only in the nation but also in the world. If I could just quote the Cognizant CEO of Australia and New Zealand, Jane Livesey, she said:

Being based in Adelaide will help us to fulfil our purpose to build a high-quality, market leading digital transformation capability that enhances the lives of everyday Australians.

So that's fantastic news here and fantastic news for South Australians. This announcement, this investment by Cognizant, brings our first term in government here to have created over 5,000 jobs in the high-tech sector. That's right: 5,000 jobs here in South Australia, and that's fantastic news, absolutely. This comes hot on the heels of the Minister for Innovation and Skills recognising that we have had the most number of South Australians employed here in the state's history.

The Hon. S.C. Mullighan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Lee!

The Hon. S.J.R. PATTERSON: It's all going towards that. That's building towards growing the economy. We have seen just recently the GSP figures for the financial year 2021: 3.9 per cent and nation leading. It is the first time in a long time we have been up the top there. This has been driven also by exports. We had fantastic export figures, with a new state record for the 12 months in July of $13 billion.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.J.R. PATTERSON: You will be happy to know, Mr Speaker, that trade figures have come out for October just today and again showed above $13 billion. This is all helping to drive the economy, creating jobs for people and, importantly, these jobs are available now. Cognizant are already recruiting, Accenture are already recruiting in areas such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, software engineering, data analytics, and also across other adjacent areas, such as marketing, legal fees, accounting fees.

This is benefiting South Australians across the board. We are getting the fundamentals right here, attracting world-class companies to give world-class jobs and opportunities for South Australians for years to come.

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