Last night the Parliamentary Friends of the Space Industry group convened a very large group of not only space enthusiasts but organisations, companies and businesses from across Australia that are doing some fantastic work in the space industry. I had the opportunity to meet with many of those people last night, some of whom I have worked with for a very long period of time, to hear how the space sector in Australia is going. Clearly, it is a sector that deserves and needs more support from the Australian government so that it can grow and meet our future needs.
To put some context around my comments, when I was Minister for Industry, Science and Technology I commissioned the standing committee on industry, science and resources to have a look at the space industry and its impact on Australia. They found that the global industry is predicted to grow to be worth almost $1.5 trillion over the next 20 years. There was a very strong endorsement of the policy at the time, which was the goal of the government to increase that sector so Australia’s space sector could build its revenue to about $12 billion and create an additional 20,000 jobs by 2030. That would give Australia a much greater slice of the space industry than we had at the time and, quite frankly, than we have now.
The obvious question is: why the space industry and why is it important to us? There are multiple reasons. I’ll just go through a couple of those today. Already, space is part of our everyday lives, and we are becoming increasingly reliant on the space sector and what it offers us. There are things like online shopping, e-banking, the news we rely on coming through our mobile devices, staying connected with our friends and family, navigating our way through traffic and finding out what the weather is predicted to be. Importantly, it helps us with our disaster responses so that we get greater predictions and support with what is happening with things such as bushfires and floods. We get much greater support to protect our borders to keep Australia safe. These are all very good reasons why we need to make sure that we support this sector in Australia and that we do everything we possibly can to grow it.
To be able to do that and to do that effectively, we have to ensure that we increase the number of people we have with STEM qualifications and skills—so science, technology, engineering and maths. There was a report released earlier this year, STEM career pathways, which had some really interesting findings. We have all known for a long time that we need to encourage more people to study science and maths, particularly at school. That report reinforced it, and some of the statistics in there are quite alarming to me in terms of making sure we do have the people we need to fill the jobs of the future. I’ll read through a couple of quotes from the report. It found:
Over the 20-year period to February 2020, before the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market, employment in STEM occupations grew by 85.0%, or more than twice the rate of non-STEM occupations (which grew by 40.2%).
That trend continued over the subsequent years. The report says:
Employment in STEM occupations (using science, technology, engineering and maths skills) is projected by the NSC to grow by 12.9%, well above the average of all occupations (of 7.8%) and more than twice as fast as non-STEM occupations (6.2%).
So, to meet the urgent workforce needs we have here in Australia, we not only must go through the process of ensuring that we are training our students at school to follow STEM pathways but also need to make sure that we’re doing all that we can to retain people in the workforce, because we know that often people, particularly women, will move out of a STEM workforce, for a whole range of reasons. The report focuses on some of the things that we need to do, and I would urge everyone in this parliament to do all that they can to ensure that we are increasing our STEM capability in Australia.