Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to speak about the Australian Technology Park, which is in my electorate, located on the site of the Eveleigh railway workshops, which operated for over 100 years. The Australian Technology Park now houses around 100 firms, providing about 5,500 of Sydney's most innovative jobs and research positions. Some of the businesses there are some of our most innovative and most high-tech. ATP Innovations is a business incubator that has helped over 300 businesses, such as Sonder Design, ingogo, Bugcrowd and Clarity Pharmaceuticals, get off the ground. Last year it won a very important business incubator award.

Companies like Post Op, specialising in sound and vision post-production for film and television, are housed at the ATP. That of course is an industry that we want to see more of. We want to see more of these jobs in Australia. The industry is a significant employer and a contributor to our export production. There are businesses like LX, an electronics product development design house, whose achievements include the world's first electronic tracker designed for koalas so that scientists can track the movement, health and welfare of these iconic Australian animals. There are businesses like Bandwidth Foundry International, working in the area of micro- and nano-fabrication.

Many of the businesses located in the Australian Technology Park were unimaginable when the park first opened, let alone when the locomotive workshops that were first built on the site were established in 1882. The Australian Photonics cooperative research centre is a research organisation that I visited a very early on after first being elected. It was the generator of many successful spin-off ventures but was sadly defunded by the Howard government.

This park is a true landmark for Sydney, where creative workers get together with scientists and investors to generate good-quality high-tech jobs. I have been very concerned to hear that it is possible that this area will be sold. I am concerned about what will happen to the jobs, the businesses and the industries there. We want an innovative economy. Both the government and the opposition are saying the same thing on this. While I am a great supporter of greater density in areas that can accommodate it and a great supporter of more housing for my own seat, even though it is already densely populated, I am very concerned that this area that is generating so many jobs, so many export dollars, so much creativity and so many breakthroughs might be sold and in fact converted to housing rather than keeping the innovative industries that are being built up there now. I support more housing in my area, particularly more affordable housing, but I would be devastated to think that the, say, $200 million that is being suggested could be realised for this site would see it going to the highest bidder and would see a change to the purpose of the land use here.

It goes along with the proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum, a fantastic cultural institution in my electorate, less than 30 years old, that is also potentially about to be sold to developers. I want to see the ATP continuing to generate jobs and I want to see it also continuing to protect the heritage buildings on the site, the public space and the passive and active recreational opportunities for people—tennis courts, an oval, cycleways and walkways through the place. When I speak about the heritage value, you can imagine, with 100 years of history of the locomotive workshops and the associated railway industry, how important this is. There is still a blacksmith's workshop on the site and it continues to hold blacksmith courses and provide the opportunity for people to see some of these great, potentially lost, skills.

I conclude by saying that, while I am a supporter of extra housing in my area, I am very concerned about the state government proposal for this site.