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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-03-21 Daily Xml
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Trade and Investment

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (15:06): My question is to the Minister for Trade and Investment. Can the Minister for Trade and Investment advise how recent international agreements will drive trade and investment for South Australia?

The Hon. N.D. CHAMPION (Taylor—Minister for Trade and Investment, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, Minister for Planning) (15:07): I thank the member for Torrens for her question. We started on the good news about the AUKUS agreement. We started question time on good news and will finish on good news, because the AUKUS agreement really does put this state at the centre of a very important global defence network. It really is a momentous decision for this state.

As the Premier has outlined and the Deputy Premier has outlined, there have been big investments: $2 billion in the shipyards, 20,000 high-skilled jobs over the next three decades; Flinders University already forging pathways and partnerships with the University of Manchester and the University of Rhode Island; the government's four technical colleges—these are all excellent news, but, of course, AUKUS also gives us new avenues for trade and investment, new avenues to grow South Australian business, to grow our skill levels, to grow our industrial base. Of course, all of that investment in the end ends up with high-skilled, high-paying jobs.

This is an industrial transformation that cannot be overestimated. Even beyond submarines, we have opportunities generated by the AUKUS agreement. Quantum technologies and artificial intelligence are already critical elements of the AUKUS pact, and they will help drive economic benefit for South Australia. Through our innovation precincts, Lot Fourteen and Tonsley, we have already developed an ecosystem that is necessary to provide the highly skilled research capability that is absolutely essential to capitalise on the AUKUS opportunity.

The Australian Institute of Machine Learning, based at Lot Fourteen, MIT bigdata Living Lab, the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre, Adelaide's QuantX Labs—these are all part of that innovation ecosystem that will help us absolutely drive investment opportunities in South Australia. Already, the Department for Trade and Investment is working with industry on the industrial applications of those technologies.

We have tasked our offices in San Francisco, Houston and New York to seize the opportunities generated by the AUKUS agreement and our old ally, the United Kingdom, accessed of course through the Office of the Agent General, is also seizing those opportunities through the Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement. We have seen 99 per cent of goods traded between the UK and Australia being tariff free. We have seen our exports grow to $376 million in the last 12 months. We already have a substantial trade partnership. The UK is the state's fourth-largest source of investment. Since 2003, $2.8 billion has been invested, and over 2½ thousand jobs in our state.

Just last month we saw a group of 25 leading UK space companies comprising 40 delegates visit Adelaide. The contingents' visit follows recent announcements by Airbus, SSTL and Equatorial Launch Australia, all establishing bases here in South Australia. We saw delegates from the United Kingdom interact with the Australian Space Agency and start to see opportunities where they can partner. They were, of course, here between Singapore and the Avalon Airshow—a very important initiative by our UK office to bring them here in the middle of that trip. The UK office saw the opportunity and seized it, and that's the sort of entrepreneurial action we want to see out of our trade offices.

Clearly, the AUKUS agreement is a momentous investment in our state. We have to absolutely meet that challenge. The Premier and the government are absolutely committed to doing that.

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