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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-05-17 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Space Industry

Mr PATTERSON (Morphett) (15:03): South Australia is the nation's space capital, but that is under serious threat under the watch of the Deputy Premier and the Minister for Defence and Space Industries. There are major opportunities in the space sector for commercial companies not only to thrive but to grow. Certainly, in South Australia we have some fantastic companies, such as Fleet Space Technologies, Inovor, Myriota, Neumann Space, Southern Launch and Space Machines Company, to name a few.

The former Liberal government seized the opportunity and convinced the commonwealth government to locate the Australian Space Agency right here in Adelaide. It also saw significant money coming from both federal and state funding sources to create Lot Fourteen, which is also the location for Mission Control and the Space Discovery Centre. The Australian Space Agency aims to triple Australia's space industry to $12 billion and employ 30,000 people by 2030, and South Australia certainly has a great opportunity to be a massive part of this growth.

Again, the former Liberal government recognised this and, by investing and supporting the space industry here, there has been huge momentum in South Australia with capability being established through the entire space supply chain, from design to manufacture through to launch and also Mission Control. Sadly, that momentum has been lost under the current space industries minister, content to sit back and ride on the coat-tails of the former Liberal government.

This has left the industry heavily exposed. Why is that? Because during this time the federal Labor government has caused both uncertainty and delay in the space industry by undertaking reviews. This is when the Deputy Premier needs to be fighting for South Australia's space industry, convincing her federal counterparts to continue to invest in space.

Last week, we saw the Australian Space Forum here in Adelaide, with over 80 Australian space companies and 1,000 attendees. When I spoke to attendees, the usual positivity of previous forums had been replaced by apprehension. Later that night, their fears were justified as the Albanese Labor government slashed nearly $80 million in programs that had been targeted to support Australia's space industry. These cuts included the Moon to Mars Supply Chain Facilitation grant. This program aimed at helping small and medium-sized space organisations be part of the supply chain for NASA's plans to go both to the Moon and to Mars.

The Albanese government also cancelled a $30 million program designed to support faster access to space flight by Australian companies with new technologies. This will directly affect South Australian companies looking to put their satellites into space and develop space heritage. Without this space heritage, when they look to bid into some major defence space programs, they will have no proof to show they can put satellites into space when competing against overseas companies.

Also axed is the $32.5 million allocated to support the development of Australian spaceports. Here in South Australia we have Southern Launch, who have set up a test range in Koonibba and a launch facility awaiting approval in Whalers Way. We need the Deputy Premier to be fighting for this facility because if we are going to have sovereign space capabilities we need to have a facility that can launch satellites into polar orbits.

All these programs provided major opportunities for South Australian space companies to firmly establish themselves in the space supply chains. Companies have gone out and hired staff, and they have bought vital components and semiconductors in order to participate in these programs. These are companies that Australia will need if it is to have sovereign capability in the multibillion dollar space-related defence projects.

When every other government around the world is investing to grow their space capability, unbelievably Australia is defunding ours. These are massive cuts to a space industry that started later than in other countries and is having to compete against them. Today, in question time, when asking the Deputy Premier about these cuts, we found out that she was blindsided, that she was going to have to talk to the minister about what they will mean for South Australian companies.

The Deputy Premier's capitulation in standing up for South Australia's space industry is a disaster. Ominously, we have Professor Melissa de Zwart of Flinders University saying, 'You now have New South Wales claiming it's the centre of space in Australia, not South Australia.' The Deputy Premier must show some backbone and force her federal Labor colleagues to adequately fund the Australian space industry so that South Australia's space ecosystem can thrive and we can ensure that South Australia remains the nation's space capital.

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