Editorial
Editorial |
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Remote Sensing:
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Government is still the problem... and the cure. Observers of the remote sensing scene may care to look at two articles in this issue. Both bear on the shape of the industry. Is it a glass half full, or half empty? On p13 we publish a report on the latest Best Practice Survey of the local spatial industry. The annual survey, compiled by Corporate GIS Consultants, records a huge increase in the use of imagery by the industry. On p39, Brian Tunstall is giving voice to his frustration at the continuing inability of government organisations to make space for private industry. The GIS/Spatial Survey is now in its fifth year. Specific questions about imagery were first included in the data section of the survey last year. Some 87 per cent of respondents in the current survey indicated that they use imagery on their site. With a little statistical inference from the survey results, one can infer that there are around 4000 GIS sites - give or take 10 per cent - and thus there are some 3500 separate sites in the industry using imagery. This is by no means the whole of the market for imagery. Many sites, in such areas as geological exploration, mineral extraction or agriculture statistics, would not be included in the survey, and all would be significant. It is worth pondering these statistics. Almost all of this market would have been created in the last ten years, implying an increase in demand significantly above the growth of the industry (measured in the survey at 11 per cent per annum) or the economy. Moreover, both the generators of the imagery and the downstream processors have shared this growth. Even the most cursory acquaintance with GIS sites around the country will demonstrate that this is not a statistical anomaly. Today a GIS site without imagery is cause for comment. Companies such as Sinclair Knight Merz, which the survey says is the biggest provider of aerial survey data, were not even part of the industry five years ago. In space, a whole new category, the commercial satellite provider, has been introduced. Ten years ago, ACRES supplied Landsat and Spot imagery to satisfy demand from high-resolution customers. Spot could provide 10 metres pixels on a good day. Today, as our story on page 36 demonstrates, ACRES is casting around for a new role in the teeth of aggressive sales from US high-res companies such as DigitalGlobe, Space Imaging and OrbImage. The resolution is a metre or less - and the price just keeps getting lower. So it looks like a good news story. There's lots of commercial activity being driven by plenty of technological development. But that is only half the story. Long ago, I came to understand that remote sensors are the agricultural folk of the spatial industry. Like Hanrahan, 'we'll all be rooned'. What's more, there are plenty to sing Daniel Croke's reprise: 'its lookin'crook.' According to Tunstall's piece, the problem is government - or more particularly, departmental staffers hell-bent on roonin' the industry by clawing back work which has been farmed out to the commercial sector. The evidence seems to bear him out. There has been growth in the commercial industry, but it is nowhere near the amount suggested by the increase in usage described in Bruce Douglas' survey. There are more players than there used to be. The average company may even be somewhat larger. But there is not 50 per cent more players, and there is not 50 per cent more work. The difference is the amount that has been siphoned off the top of the industry by government's own buying habits. What this shows, more than anything else, is that the Action Agenda achieved less than its backers hoped. The fundamental processes in the industry have not been changed by government decree. To the extent that industry has grown, it is through its own exertion. Government officials have not helped at all. The one significant consequence of the AA has been the creation of the Australian Spatial Information Business Association. ASIBA has been highly visible in the industry over the past 12 months. Its executive is energetic and committed. But whether it is making more than a marginal difference to the industry is open to question. Perhaps it was always a rather naive proposition that government staffers would quietly hand over their work to industry, just because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Indeed, the relationship between government and industry is still problematic. It's not even restricted to remote sensing; it is a problem across the whole industry. Paul Darby, the chair of the South Australian cluster organisation Spatial Australia, recently put the blame for the failure of the cluster on a trend by the South Australian state government to reduce its dependence on consultants for spatial work. In that state at least, government officials have won a resounding victory. The incoming government's platform explicitly defends the use of state government workers in preference to consultants where that is possible. It is doubtful if South Australians are the worst offenders. They are just the noisiest. If this analysis is even halfway correct, it is rather a sad state of affairs. In the economy in general we have learned that the most efficient way to drive almost any public endeavour is a properly managed public/private partnership. Consultancy is not a way for public servants to shed their responsibilities for the proper administration of the country. Neither is it a way for entrepreneurs to earn maximum salaries for minimum performance. But it may be the best way to spend the citizens' hard-earned cash. JON FAIRALL is the Editor of Position |
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