David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to take note of report 217 of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

This report was on the Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America on Technology Safeguards Associated with United States Participation in Space Launches from Australia. Having agreements around technological areas such as space launches are not unusual. We've done that in the defence sector for many years. But, in order to actually improve the access of our industry to the burgeoning global market in the utilisation of space, this is an important agreement.

The inquiry itself was not controversial. There was broad support for this agreement from a range of stakeholders, and, in fact, the commercial opportunities are large. The value of the global space sector is expected to rise from US$464 billion in 2022 to US$1.1 trillion by 2040. So there is a large sector there. The US is one of largest players, so it does make good common sense for Australia to be involved with that and to make sure that the companies who are investing in infrastructure, staff and processes here in Australia—from Southern Launch, in my home state of South Australia, to Equatorial Launch Australia and others across the nation—have the ability to tap into the US market as well as markets from Europe and Asia, as they are currently doing.

As is often the case, though, the inquiries that lead to these reports uncover issues which sometimes don't make it into the report, and that's why these opportunities to outline some of the other considerations are important in this parliament. There are three areas that I want to quickly cover off. One is the strategic alignment of government departments. Here we have a process initiated by the department of industry, who oversee the Australian Space Agency, around this TSA so that we can have our space sector operate launches.

What was not happening was getting the agreement of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water to actually progress the environmental approvals for companies who are setting up launch sites. In some cases they were waiting years and having to turn customers away because they weren't getting the approvals through the system. The evidence that came out very clearly during the inquiry was that, for the Australian government, if we are seeing this as a priority then we need to actually get each of the departments who provide an enabler to the outcome we're seeking to do their part in having an equal level of priority for some of these outcomes. Otherwise, you'll get one piece in place, but then the other approvals don't come through, and to some extent it's almost been a wasted effort. That alignment is important.

Another piece of evidence that came through fairly strongly from witnesses was the strong support for the Australian Space Agency, led by Enrico Palermo, and for the good job he and his staff are doing. The establishment of that agency was a legacy of the former coalition government. The discussion also highlighted that we could probably see improved efficiencies if that agency were actually an independent statutory body as opposed to something sitting under the department of industry. That is something that I believe the Australian government should look at in terms of how we optimise the ability of that agency to be our interlocutor with international partners as well as being the regulator here in Australia for activities such as space launch.

The last part that I'd like to talk to is the importance of a whole-of-government investment in this industry sector. Space launch is but one part of the sector, and there was a fair bit of discussion during the inquiry about the missed opportunity of Minister Husic cancelling the National Space Mission for Earth Observation and about the disappointment across Australia's space sector in undoing that investment that had given our sector a clear strategic path forward to developing true sovereign capability. This program was announced in the 2022-23 budget, with some billions of dollars over the decade but $38.5 million per annum for the first phase, which was to design, build and launch four satellites here in Australia.

Many people would ask, 'Why would we do that?' Earth observation is important in terms of geosciences, which is everything from forecasting the weather to responding to natural disasters—and that was the topic of discussion that just occurred with the previous report—as well as managing the environment and supporting our farmers. The ability to launch satellites is also important for things like the Global Positioning System, and there are so many systems in our nation, from the distribution of goods, whether it be pharmaceutical medical goods, to taxis—you name it. People use GPS all the time.

If there's one thing we know, it's that in a conflict, as we've seen in Ukraine, the overhead assets are one of the first things that will be targeted by adversaries in a campaign. So we would expect that, were there to be a serious conflict in the Indo-Pacific, the satellites that provide communications and observations over our areas of interest, as well as that time-space information through GPS, would be disabled. Having an industry sector that is actually capable of not just providing a widget for someone else's program but also doing all the joined-up elements of designing the payload, the satellite bus, the launch vehicle, the launch site and the control sector was something that was going to be enabled by the National Space Mission for Earth Observation—genuinely a dual-use purpose.

If we look to the 2020 Defence strategic update and the Defence strategic review of 2023, they highlight that Australia no longer has a 10-year warning time before the potential for a major conflict in our region, where we would lose those overhead assets. Even those that weren't damaged or destroyed would be most likely retasked and redeployed by the nations that own them, and the Australian public would expect the Australian government to work with our industry to launch our own communications, ISR and GPS satellites. But if we have not actually invested in the sector to do that then we don't have that joined-up industry from the launch sites to the satellite bus producers to the control sectors to enable it. So the National Space Mission for Earth Observation was actually contributing some $65.7 million to set the conditions for rocket launch; $12 million ongoing to remove the cost recovery launches to make it more viable for industry; some $9.5 million to develop a space strategic update to actually align our space efforts across the nation, which would make this a really viable sector, and that was going to take our funding to over $2 billion.

So it is one more area where the Albanese government has actually undermined the resilience of Australian industry and the resilience of our defence capability by cutting that funding, and I certainly call for the restoration of that funding so that things like this new agreement around space launch with the United States will be complemented by a resilience and capable Australian industry that can support us in peace, in deterring conflict and—worst case—in winning a conflict.