Page 3233 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 17 September 2013

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the lake. Combined with a new multi-use stadium, the Australia forum and the lake-side aquatic centre, Civic will become a place which is more attractive to residents and visitors, where people will happily stay longer. It will be more active, safer and more accessible, with diverse activities during the day and at night.

The ANU’s Advanced Instrumentation Technology Centre at Mount Stromlo, built with part of the ANU’s insurance proceeds from the 2003 bushfires, is creating a new national centre for the Australian space community, connecting researchers and industry partners from around the country and across the globe. ACT company Electro Optic Systems, a world leader in space debris laser-tracking technology, co-located at Mount Stromlo, is partnering with the centre to develop a space industry innovation precinct at Mount Stromlo.

Recently the commonwealth government announced that EOS and the ANU had successfully bid to develop a space and spatial industry partnership at Mount Stromlo under the commonwealth government’s industry partnership program. In addition to EOS and the ANU, another key player in the partnership is the ACT company Locata, whose technology expands GPS capability and allows it to be used in areas the GPS service cannot reach—for example, open-cut mines and inside buildings.

This outcome is a wonderful opportunity for the ACT. The future importance of this industry cannot be overstated. Australia’s space industry is involved in earth observation, global positioning, communications and defence activities. The spatial sector consists of fields such as surveying, remote sensing, location-based services, mapping, aerial imagery, land development, environmental management and geographic information systems.

This partnership will bring the two together for the benefit of a whole range of industries—for example, mining, agriculture, utilities, defence, emergency management, communications, transport and infrastructure. The partnership aims to create more than 10,000 new high-technology jobs, expand exports and grow revenues of up to $12.5 billion per annum by 2023. Although the partnership is to have a national focus, with its headquarters located at Mount Stromlo we can expect that a large proportion of this growth will occur here in the territory.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Dr Ben Greene of EOS for taking the lead in this partnership. Dr Greene is keen to ensure that the partnership quickly develops a commercial focus. If businesses in the partnership can replicate EOS’s success in generating 90 per cent of its $400 million in revenue through exports, then, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will excuse the pun, the sky is the limit for this partnership.

To support the partnership, we have pledged in-kind support of $120,000 per annum by providing the services of a business development case manager to the partnership to give businesses access to the government’s business development services. In addition, we have agreed to look at the business case for providing the partnership with a capital injection for the development of an incubator facility at Mount Stromlo.


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