Michael West’s Blog

A friend in the public service here in Canberra has informed me, and to quote the relevant announcement, that…

“On 19 March 2008, the Senate referred the following matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics for report no later than October 2008 with an interim report by 23 June 2008:

The current state of Australia’s space science and industry sector, examining options to strengthen and expand Australia’s position in fields that strongly align with space science and industry, giving consideration to any national strategic coordination requirements and taking into account findings and policy options of the National Innovation System Review, with particular reference to:

1. Australia’s capabilities in space science, industry and education, including:
   
   1. existing Australian activity of world-class standard, and
   2. areas in which there is currently little or no activity but that are within the technical and intellectual capacity of the country;
2. arguments for and against expanded Australian activity in space science and industry, including:
   
   1. an assessment of the risks to Australia’s national interest of Australia’s dependence on foreign-owned and operated satellites,
   2. the potential benefits that could accrue to Australia through further development of our space capability,
   3. economic, social, environmental, national security and other needs that are not being met or are in danger of not being met by Australia’s existing space resources or access to foreign resources,
   4. impediments to strengthening and expanding space science and industry in Australia, including limiting factors relating to spatial information and global positioning systems, including but not limited to ground infrastructures, intergovernmental arrangements, legislative arrangements and government/industry coordination, and
   5. the goals of any strengthening and expansion of Australia’s space capability both in the private sector and across government; and
3. realistic policy options that facilitate effective solutions to cross-sector technological and organisational challenges, opportunity capture and development imperatives that align with national need and in consideration of existing world-class capability.”

Although the new Federal Labor government is going a little review/inquiry crazy, this is a welcome development. Kudos to Democrat Senator Natasha Stott Despoja for initiating this inquiry and for Liberal Senator Grant Chapman and others for co-sponsoring it. It is also good to read here in The Australian that the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr, is supportive as well, which is more than can be said about his predecessor. Hopefully those conducting the inquiry will have a keen sense of history and become familiar with the Madigan Report (1985), the ‘An Integrated National Space Program’ report (1992) and Space: ‘A Priority for Australia’ (2005) and other similar inquiries of the past. This inquiry will also complement the soon to be released Decadal Plan for Space Science by the Australia Academy of Sciences’ National Committee on Space Science. I’ve contributed a little bit to its preparation, mainly in the education and public outreach arena, but not much.

Details about how to make a submission can be found on the relevant Senate Economics Committee website.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Events - Canberra, News - Space & Aeronautics, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.