SIBA Chairman Steve Critchlow Speech at the Launch of the Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy Report

Date: 25 August 2009 - 1 Comments

Read a transcript of SIBA chairman Steve Critchlow's speech at the launch of the Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy report, 25 August 2009, in conjunction with SIBA’s inaugural Annual General Meeting:

Minister Williamson, Senator Lundy, Mr MacDonald, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Its a pleasure to see you all here at the first Annual General Meeting of the Spatial Industries Business Association of New Zealand.

Frankly, when we set the AGM date two months ago, we did not expect to see so many here tonight.

Nevertheless, you are all very welcome at this remarkable event.

This event is remarkable for three reasons.

First, it is about identifying the contribution of Spatial Information to our economy  - it has been invisible up until now.

Second, it is remarkable because this evening is a demonstration of collaboration and joint leadership between the state and the private sector.

SIBA welcomes this – thank you Colin [MacDonald] for taking the lead for the state.

Third, it is remarkable because of the commitment by government to improve New Zealand’s Spatial Data Infrastructure – more about this in a minute.

These three things provide a new platform and a new way of working.

Together, we can use this to improve the benefits for New Zealand from Spatial Information.

I would now like to take a minute to talk about a Spatial Data Infrastructure.

Its development will go a long way to reducing the existing barriers identified in the ACIL Tasman report.

The ACIL Tasman report identifies these barriers are currently depriving NZ of some 500 million dollars of GDP per year.

An SDI decision would be the biggest step forward in our game since 1999 when the previous National government opened up the national Topographical dataset by reducing its price from 1.8 million dollars to 1,500 dollars.

Actually, 500 years ago maps were almost “priceless” and locked up with the Crown Jewels, so there is a trend developing.

How do we deliver a National Spatial Data Infrastructure?

A joint workshop in November will provide an opportunity to develop an Action Agenda, following on from the 2001 Australian experience.

This would bring together major users from industry, commerce, and central and local government to identify their barriers and priorities.

We will need joint working groups to look at various parts of the Spatial Data Infrastructure.

We hope many of you will join us and LINZ on these working groups.

One major objective is to help LINZ in its request for funding for the 2010–11 financial year to remove barriers to the easier use of Spatial Information.

We will also need to recognise the value of 20 years of investment on spatial databases created and maintained by SIBA members that provide a unique insight into NZ. That is for another day.

The ACIL Tasman report suggests that 100 million dollars of investment would generate government revenue (tax income) of a matching 100 million and deliver 500 million dollars of benefits to the economy.

A Spatial Data Infrastructure is all about improving the supply side of the Spatial Industries sector.

The demand side is even more exciting – it has the potential to increase our GDP even more significantly.

SIBA members help organisations use Spatial Information to improve productivity and increase the certainty of decision-making and so help New Zealand prosper.

The ACIL-Tasman Report clearly states that most of government and much of industry is at the “early adopter” penetration level of the technology take-up cycle.

The important point is that this roughly 10% adoption level already contributes $1.2 billion per year to GDP.

This means that by encouraging individuals and organisations to adopt methods that are already used by others in their sector, there is the potential to increase this contribution many times.

The timing and impact are not quantified in the report, but typically moving from early adoption to maturity delivers a 2 to 5 times economic multiplier over 10 to 20 years.

Clearly with this potential we need to take this opportunity seriously.

Nevertheless, as a US Senator said “a billion here, a billion there – pretty soon it adds up to real money”.

As a first step, SIBA will be taking the lead to encourage “conversations” between the spatial sector and other sectors.

We aim to help organisations share their experiences of the use of spatial information to increase the level of adoption and the speed of uptake.

We are aiming to help improve productivity across the whole New Zealand economy through the use of Spatial Information.

The plan is for an Action Summit in March 2010 to help this along.

We will seek continued input from Regional Development agencies such as Grow Wellington, and interaction with the Productivity Taskforce.

Finally, thank-you.

Thank you Minister [Williamson]. We appreciate your insight and encouragement.

Thank you Senator Lundy. Australia has always had a leadership position in the spatial information sector. We appreciate support from SIBA and our respected colleagues across the ditch. We’re all on this planet together.

Thank you Colin [MacDonald]. We appreciate the changes you have made already, and look forward to more cooperation and collaboration with LINZ – thank you for your leadership in the state sector.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the members of the SIBA Establishment Committee and the committed individuals who share our vision. We look forward to working with you on New Zealand’s Spatial Data Infrastructure and Spatial Sector Action Agenda.

The next few months will be very busy.

SIBA may be a new business association, but what I see forming is a new community across the whole sector.

This can only be good for New Zealand.

Thank you all for joining us on this auspicious occasion.

For more information see the:

• Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy full report (PDF, 1.64MB)
• Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy section on this website