ELLEN FANNING, HOST: Now you and Elon Musk have something in common. Did you know that? You’re possibly reeling at that suggestion. You have both invested in the space race. That’s right – about $75 million of your taxpayer money has just been spent on Queensland space company Gilmour Space Technologies. The money is actually coming from the National Reconstruction Fund. It’s a taxpayer pool. But this little rocket start-up is a great Queensland success story, now valued at a billion dollars. 

Senator Tim Ayres is the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science. Are you excited about this as well, that we could have here in Queensland an Uber rocket service for space, delivering satellites into space for customers? 

SENATOR TIM AYRES, MINISTER FOR INDUSTRY AND INNOVATION AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE: Yeah, I am, Ellen. It’s good to talk to you again. This is a huge opportunity for Queensland and for Australia, backing what once was a small Queensland start-up with a $75 million equity investment here from the National Reconstruction Fund, crowding in $217 million of private and superannuation investment as well. This means we’ve got a stake in a company that we’re working with to turn into a billion-dollar Queensland company that is playing a role in manufacturing but also in the space industry, which is critical for Australia’s future. 

FANNING: The listeners will have heard Adam Gilmour regularly on 612 ABC Radio Brisbane, Minister. He’s the CEO of Gilmour Space, an ambitious, pioneering sort of fella. But the longest he’s ever got it up, so to speak, is 14 seconds. I’m speaking, of course, of his rockets. So why all the excitement? 

AYRES: Well, this is the way that the space industry works, of course. I remember that launch vividly. It happened shortly after I was appointed as the minister. I spoke to Adam the day before that launch. I understood how critical that process was and the lessons – you know, they did not expect that they’d put that rocket into space. They expected that they would learn lessons and make engineering corrections and changes to their processes as a result of that launch, and that’s exactly what’s happened. 

This is a company that 70 per cent of the components they make in-house. They have an almost exclusively Australian supply chain. Australia already is a place where space launches happen. We’re a destination for launch investment, for satellites and critical technologies. I think some of those rockets ought to be Australian. And they ought to be made with Australian technology, made by blue-collar workers in factories around Australia. And this investment – it’s not a grant; it’s an equity investment which will make a return if successful to the National Reconstruction Fund, so it can be invested back again into future Australian manufacturing – this is the direction that the Albanese Government is taking the re-industrialisation of our economy. 

FANNING: Explain to me why it’s not just going to – I get you need ambitious people, not just on the West Coast of the United States, Minister – like Adam Gilmour, right, who says things like – because that’s the only way you succeed – he says, “If we take four attempts to get into orbit. That’s okay. If we take five attempts to get into orbit, we’re okay”. So, I get that, and all good luck to him. But it’s been described as a space unicorn. Of course, a unicorn is a private company valued at a billion dollars. Why is everybody seeing the value in a company that keeps failing? 

AYRES: Well, because there’s risk, of course, attached to all of these kind of investments. If we don’t approach seriously supporting start-ups and supporting new manufacturing, which comes with a level of risk, each individual investment – you know, we’re not going to succeed with a hundred per cent of these, but if we just leave it to the market, if we just abandon the field, which is what’s happened over the course of the period where governments stepped away from supporting manufacturing, then we won’t see progress at all. So we’re supporting risk takers and new technologies. Proper due diligence and independent processes, we’re maximising value – 

FANNING: Yeah, yeah, but it’s not you that’s saying it’s worth a billion dollars; it’s the market saying it’s worth a billion dollars, right? 

AYRES: Yeah, that’s right – 

FANNING: It’s the market saying this is a little goer, this joint. So why do they need the 75 million? What will that unlock for them, as well as all the other funding that’s coming in from some of the listeners’ superannuation funds, that real patient capital, you know, invested over 50 years for people’s retirements? 

AYRES: Well, government is stepping in here and playing an entrepreneurial role, an entrepreneurial state role here, which gives private sector investment the confidence to step in. And the National Reconstruction Fund has played a role here to marshal the whole portfolio of investment, whether it’s the superannuation funds or private capital, a total of $217 million here in private sector investors who, because the Commonwealth, through the National Reconstruction Fund, has marshalled an investment strategy. That investment would not otherwise have happened. And that’s delivering a mix of public and private and superannuation investment that goes straight into an Aussie battler firm, a manufacturing firm, on the Gold Coast that will deliver local production and an industry that’s important for Australia’s strategic future and our future economic resilience. 

FANNING: Senator Tim Ayres with you, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Minister for Science. Eighteen minutes past three. 

There’s a text here from Andrew, Minister, and we always get one like it when we talk to the Gilmour Space folks or anybody who’s interested in investing in them: “Why is investment in space critical to Australia’s future?” I remember an earlier text when the cows, I think, in Bowen, were looking startled at the 14-second launch that was going on. People were saying, “Why don’t we just leave it to the Americans?” Why is – why can we dream of this industry here? Why aren’t we kidding ourselves? What do you say? 

AYRES: Well, the Americans are really important partners, of course, in the space sector. But Australia – you know, I’m for Australia’s capacity here. I want Australia to have its own sovereign manufacturing and space industry capability, not to do everything, but to mean that we’ve got the capacity to project into this area for local jobs, for economic resilience reasons. And, of course, the space industry lends itself to a whole series of other strategic capabilities that Australia needs to be in for the future. You know, space is not irrelevant. In terms of the industrial capabilities to some of our defence capabilities, some of the satellite technologies that are engaged here are important for our agricultural sector, for defence, for all sorts of capabilities. It’s an enabling capability for the rest of manufacturing. It’s got strategic value. It’s good jobs, science and technology and blue-collar jobs in regional communities, and fundamentally the Albanese Government is a government that backs Australia and backs Australia’s capacity to make things and to use our science smarts and our technological smarts to deliver onshore capabilities that are in our national interest. 

FANNING: And what about the money? If the company gets it right, is there a payoff on that $75 million taxpayer investment in the company? 

AYRES: Absolutely. It’s an equity injection. That means that the National Reconstruction Fund, alongside the new investors that the fund has brought to bear here, are co-owners of the company. All of these things come with risk, and they come with reward. They’re designed to achieve a public policy purpose – good jobs, economic resilience, re-industrialising our economy – but also it comes with the opportunity to share in the risks and to share in the rewards. So, as this company grows, if it grows in value, then there is an opportunity there for the Commonwealth and the National Reconstruction Fund to re-invest that money in new manufacturing projects, new technology projects. This is a $15 billion fund that we introduced in the first term of the Albanese Government, and it’s my job in this second term to make sure that we are implementing that with impact and it’s driving activity and investment and new jobs and new manufacturing. 

FANNING: That’s Elon Musk beware. There you go. 

AYRES: Well, we back Australia. We just think there’s a – we’ve got to have confidence in our capacity, science and technology through to manufacturing. We’ve got some of the best manufacturing in the world. And Queensland, with all of its metals and minerals and resources and space capability, is a place where the Albanese Government sees a big future for manufacturing and for more investments just like this one. 

FANNING: Love your enthusiasm. Great to talk to you again. 

AYRES: Good to talk to you, Ellen. 

FANNING: Tim Ayres, Minister for Industry and Innovation, Minister for Science.