Treasury razor gang ruins deputy PM’s national vision

Six months before he became deputy Prime Minister of Australia, Richard Marles set out part of his vision for the nation — we should be nation that develops jobs from science by being a leading player in the world space industry.

The vision was delivered in a carefully constructed, inspiring speech to potential space investors where he linked our past activities and future potential.

What Marles didn’t know back in November 2021 was that in 2023, after a year as deputy Prime Minister and many periods as acting Prime Minister, treasury’s dislike of technology investment by government would be directed towards disembowelling parts of the Marles’ vision.

And the minister in charge of science and space Ed Husic let it happen fearing that if the cuts were was not made in space investment they would be made somewhere else.

As it happened, treasury had grossly underestimated its tax and minerals revenue and the Marles’ vision could have been fully backed.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles set out a vision for Australia to develop jobs from science and be a leading player in the world space industry.

For all Australians in this time of intense and often bitter debate about the voice, plus mortgage and rent stress, it’s a wonderful relief to read the inspiring words of a deputy Prime Minister with a vision.

Marles pointed out that by the 2040s space looks set to be a trillion-dollar industry.

The Australian space agency first appeared in the 2018-19 with a budget of $26m over the forward estimates

“I would contend that given our history; given our skills; given our legacy and given the tremendous opportunity that space represents going forward we need to be doing more. Government needs to make the decision that this is going to be an industry we will be part of as a nation because we have the skills and we have the location,” Marles said.

“We have incredible natural assets that genuinely can be a national strength and we really can be one of the leading players in the world if we make the decision to do this.”

Marles pointed out that the pandemic has shown that “we as a nation must climb the technology ladder. The gap between US and the cutting edge of modernity is growing larger. We need to close that gap.

“We do science well but we commercialised science about as badly as any country in the OECD and that’s the truth of it. That’s what we absolutely have to change.

“I would say if there is one critical piece of micro-economic reform which faces this country today it is the challenge of turning science into jobs.”

Marles said that given the skills that have been developed over decades the space industry is “absolutely” one of those areas where Australia can be a leading nation.

“The Australian Space Agency is really is a really critical first step and it’s really important … but we need to take a much bigger step than that going forward if Australia is going to fulfil its destiny as a country which is leading the world in terms of our space industry,” he said.

Those inspiring words helped trigger a volley of investment believing that the space policies of the Coalition would be accelerated under the ALP.

The reverse has happened.

In the recent budget the headline for the Australian Space Agency shows a continuation of funding for the agency’s operations involving $34.2m for the coming three years, including regulating the space sector – not all that different to the starting point back in 2018-2019.

The disaster was a $77m cut in key programs the Agency was given by the previous government including the development of up to three launch facilities in Australia.

Without the infrastructure to launch from Australia, the case for manufacturing full scale platforms in Australia looks off the table.

And the space industry got the treasury message when support for Australian companies to enter global supply chains was slashed.

However, to be fair, there remained $150m to help companies engage in NASA’s moon to Mars program and support for technologies that will be involved in space.

In 2015 Bob Hawke and Kim Beazley backed the NewSat satellite operation, encouraging world banks to support the project.

Back around 2015 former Prime Minister Bob Hawke and former defence minister Kim Beazley – then Australia’s US ambassador – backed the Australian-owned NewSat satellite operation encouraging world banks to support the project.

With the banks already lending large sums and the satellite close to launch the banks suddenly withdrew and that withdrawal will now be the subject of an enormous court case.

The Australian talents behind the New Sat venture took up key roles in groups like Lockheed Martin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It was ironic that one of the key NewSat executives is now a top SpaceX executive and helped market the US satellite service to Telstra for its rural network.

Satellites will take an increased share of the telecommunication market from fixed line networks like NBN.

The late Bob Hawke, Kim Beazley and Richard Marles all understood the future importance of satellites and space to Australia but their visions have not been realised.