Industry Economic Impact Study

Australia faces many challenges in the post Covid period. Productivity has been declining in some industries or relatively flat in others. The retreat from a global approach to trade has brought new challenges to  maintaining Australia’s export markets and international competitiveness. The geopolitical framework has increased the political focus on sovereign capabilities in key areas. The Productivity Commission recent report on raising productivity highlighted the lower rate of growth in productivity over the past twenty years. This is a concern for wages growth as well as for overall competitiveness of the Australian economy. The fall in productivity growth in the 2019 to 2020 period appears to be COVID induced. That said the productivity growth outlook post COVID is concerning.

It is within this environment that the Geospatial council seeks to reassess the contribution and value of geospatial information to the Australian economy, to place the value of the geospatial industry in the context of its potential contribution to further economic welfare for society. The aim would be to support readjust perception of the geospatial sector and support advocacy for policy and program imperatives at the national and state level.

To these ends the economic evaluation should:

• Demonstrate the economic contribution that the geospatial sector has made to the Australian economy to date and its potential to contribute to further economic growth and employment in the future
• To illustrate the cost of not taking action now to address policy issues facing the industry, including:
• Maintaining space and geospatial programs with a focus on applications that improve the productivity of Australian industry and support sustainable environmental management.
• Supporting the ongoing development of government spatial data infrastructure including spatial digital twins
• engaging the geospatial services in the digital transformation agenda
• Underpin the importance of education and training policies and programs to provide the workforce necessary to realise the potential of the sector to make this contribution.
• Implementing the Australian Surveying and Spatial Workforce National Roadmap.

CLICK HERE to read more