International Astronautical Congress - QUAD Nations Security Dialogue

Good morning. It is my pleasure to be able to welcome you all to the harbour city and represent the Albanese Government here today, which has a proud track record when it comes to innovation in building our space capabilities.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land the Gadigal peoples of the Eora Nation on which we meet today and pay my respects to their Elders, past, present. 

To the Eora peoples - the stars were in their dreaming stories the home of their ancestral beings guided their laws and traditions and they were indispensable to their daily lives as calendars for the prediction of seasons and weather. 

I also extend a special welcome to dignitaries, experts and industry leaders from India, Japan and the United States.

Many of the nations and industry groups represented here today work with Australia in space defence technology, research and innovation. 

We’ve done this recently with the Quad nations, by collaborating on ways to share satellite data on climate change, enhancing disaster preparedness, and to better manage extreme weather events within the Indo-Pacific region.    

You are all part of a great human endeavour the greatest human adventure – Space - its exploration and our quest to reach out into it and our striving to understand its deepest mysteries. 

It is an endeavour that fires our human imagination. Space holds a deep abiding mystery for humanity - we have looked up to the stars throughout human history, young and old alike, and have asked the same questions:

What is out there? Are we alone? 

Hoping these questions may bring us a little closer to the meaning of our earthly lives - to our purpose in the universe. 

So it has held for us great fear - but also a great source and well spring of inspiration. 

Our endeavour to reach the stars has been one that has been marked by sacrifice, but also by human triumphs felt by the entire world such as when the first human stepped on the moon 57 years ago. 

The stars eternal as they are look somewhat different to us today - we see space through the lens of our time - a time of great strategic competition, which offers both opportunity and significant challenges, and we are witnessing a new space race, driven by a combination of government and innovative private industry. That competition drives us forward and the pace of this technological change is impacting defence forces around the world... and no country is immune.

We live in a time where protecting peace means deterrence, and there is no greater investment in peace than our investment in boosting our capabilities here in Australia.   

As I have always said; our investment in defence is an investment in peace.

And our Government is protecting peace in our region by preparing our Defence Force for an increasingly complex and unpredictable geopolitical environment. 

We are doing this through the largest increase in defence spending since the end of the Second World War, investing an additional $70 billion over the decade.^[1] 

And we are rapidly evolving our Australian Defence Force to be an integrated, focused force that will be positioned to safeguard Australia’s security and contribute to regional peace and prosperity. 

We are also investing in space, where technology is rapidly becoming indispensable to our daily lives.

But it is also increasingly fundamental to our defence - from communications, navigation and targeting, to climate monitoring and responses to disasters.

A shared scientific understanding of how best to engage with this new frontier is built most effectively through collaboration with our international partners.

This will help us to advance carefully and wisely, to explore and harness space in sustainable ways while protecting our life here on Earth.

But like many aspects of geo-politics today, space itself has never been more contested, and combatting threats in this domain will only be achieved through team effort.^[2] 

Which is why I’d like to give a special mention of the vital role of industry. 

We must all play a role in ensuring space remains a domain of innovation, sustainability, and shared prosperity and security.

And Australia is positioned to bring expertise to this mission.

We have a proud culture of innovation in this country. 

Australia has been an integral part of deep space missions with NASA. 

In 1957, we established Woomera facility. In 1962 Parkes supported Mariner 2, and of course we played a vital and famous role in the Apollo 11 mission - our location radio environment for receiving signals put Parkes and Honey Suckle Creek on the international stage.  

Neil Armstrong’s words on the Moon were first heard here in Australia and the vision of that famous step was first seen here in Australia. 

In 1967, Australia became just the fourth country in the world to build and launch a satellite into orbit.^[3]

Today, we continue to reach for the stars. 

Within Defence, close partnerships with industry and academia have produced a CubeSat nanosatellite, launched into low Earth orbit earlier this year as part of the Buccaneer Main Mission.^[4]

These partnerships have also enabled us to test new types of satellite communications systems using both laser light and radio-frequencies for data transfer.

And we are developing a ground-to-satellite optical quantum link, aiming to overcome the risk of an adversary jamming GPS both on the battlefield an in routine flights during peacetime.

These projects are made possible by the Government’s investment of up to $12 billion over 10 years towards enhanced space capabilities through the Defence 2024 Integrated Investment Program^[5]. 

We are also partnering with industry to advance Australia’s autonomous capabilities, and rapidly evolve our defences against drones. 

Ongoing wars have shown the threat from low-cost, expendable, mass-produced weapons is ramping up.

The execution of Operation Spiderweb by our Ukrainian friends proved the effectiveness of drones against multi-million dollar capabilities. 

The technology development cycle for drones is not measured in years, but in months or weeks.

This is why we are investing more than $10 billion on drones over the next decade, including at least $4.3 billion on uncrewed aerial systems… 

and we are ensuring the ADF can protect Australia in the era of drone warfare.

Defence is fast-tracking capabilities to deliver a comprehensive counter-drone system.

Recently we issued the first contracts to 20 companies totalling $41.1 million to urgently acquire counter-drone sensors and effectors.…

...60 per cent of this funding is going to Australian companies like Droneshield, Acacia, Daronmont, Silentium and SouthTech Systems.

And by the end of the year, at least 120 of the most capable effectors and sensors will be introduced into ADF service…

…giving the ADF options to better protect Defence bases, people and equipment in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

Through all of these investments in defence - but also more broadly - we are making choices about what role we play in the next phases of the great human endeavour in space. 

Do we want to be leaders in space exploration? 

Do we want our scientists to be on the frontline of ground breaking research? In space technologies? 

And what of the support for our defence and space industry? 

I believe we should. I believe we can. I believe we must.

President Kennedy famously quoted the British explorer George Mallory who was asked why he was climbing Mt Everest to which he replied “Because it’s there”

Space is there and it’s not going anywhere, and we must work together to reach into it.

Because it is in our national interests. 

It is in our collective interests to work together on our mutual defence and collective security in the domain of space.

The great human endeavour into space also holds the key to the technologies and collaboration on our world between our nations that will ensure our security, and it will maintain the stability and the prosperity that benefits our nations. 

I believe it may be that we are explicably drawn to the stars because we are made of them. We have sung our songs and weaved our stories across the millennia through the stars in the sky. We are propelled to them in a way that we cannot yet fully understand. 

But I know that the work we do here today and together in space will take humanity in great leaps forward.

And I thank you all for committing to that great collective effort that great human endeavour - that great human adventure into space. 

ENDS