Page 214 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 2019
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within their Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, which is the New Zealand government’s economic growth and innovation agency. Core responsibilities of the New Zealand Space Agency are space policy, regulation and business development relating to the use of space from New Zealand.
The purpose of the meeting was to find out more about the establishment of the New Zealand Space Agency, the capability of New Zealand’s industry, its future plans and opportunities for collaboration between our two space industries, in particular between New Zealand’s universities and UNSW Canberra’s space area and ANU InSpace.
As members are aware, around a quarter of all jobs in the Australian space industry are already in Canberra. We are home to the next generation of researchers, engineers and scientists that will support the future growth of our nation’s industry. Central to Canberra’s space industry development is the ecosystem of innovative and commercial participants across a broad spectrum of roles: industry, education institutions, the research community and government.
The University of New South Wales Canberra and the Australian National University are the most active higher education research institutions in space-related disciplines in Australia. Together, these two institutions provide Australia’s only—I repeat “Australia’s only”—end-to-end capability for the design, build and testing of Australia’s next generation of satellites.
Our New Zealand colleagues indicated a strong interest in working with Canberra’s space industry. I do note that the New Zealand government made the wise decision to locate their space agency in their national capital. It is curious that our current caretaker government has determined to locate the space agency away from Canberra. However, we will continue to work on developing the space sector for our economy, and we can but hope that the folly of the decision made by the current government will be overturned in the future and the Australian Space Agency will be located in the national capital.
It is our continued ambition to make Canberra the world’s most livable and inclusive city, and it is with this aim in mind that I established the position of Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality—I have taken that portfolio—to drive the government’s ambition for an inclusive city for all Canberrans.
The New Zealand government are well advanced in their policy development in these areas, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern supporting an ambitious program of social inclusion, with a particular focus on addressing poverty in her country. During the meeting with the New Zealand treasurer, the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson, I had the opportunity to receive a briefing on the measures that are being undertaken to deliver on this agenda and potential solutions the New Zealand government is pursuing. It is very useful for the ACT to learn from the success of other jurisdictions and bring back to Canberra work that we can undertake for the betterment of our entire community.
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