In reply to Hon. SANDRA KANCK (27 August) and answered by letter on 11 October.
  The Hon. R.I. LUCAS: The Premi-er and Min-ister for Indus-try, Trade and Tour-ism has provided the following information.
 South Australia has had a long association with the design and manufacture of Defence technology dating from the late 1940s when the joint Australian/UK rocket development program was com-menced at Woomera and the then Long Range Weapons Research Establish-ment, now DSTO, was established at Salisbury to support the program. Over the last 45 years, South Australia's defence industry sector has benefited from the presence of DSTO, which has grown to become the Australian leader in high technology electron-ics, computing and surveillance sys-tems.
 Defence is important to Australia, and generally re-ceives bi-partisan support in the Federal arena. Since 1976 the fundamental plank of Australia's Defence policy has been `Self Reliance' and it is acknowledged that a capable and economically sustainable defence industry is an essen-tial element of Australia's Defence posture. Accordingly, the Commonwealth Government has devel-oped a range of defence industry policy, the most recent of which was released by the Minister for Defence Industry, Science and Personnel, the Hon Bronwyn Bishop, in June this year.
 The Commonwealth Government's defence industry policy recognises that defence exports are essential to the maintenance of the indigenous defence industry capability required to support the Nation's Defence, the policy there-fore provides for Defence support and facilitation of defence exports. However, it is import-ant to note that all exports of defence goods are directly managed by Defence in accordance with the provisions of the Wassenaar Ar-rangement, an international agreement to control the pro-lifer-ation of conven-tional arms and dual use goods.
 Defence and the defence industry are significant contri-butors to the State's economy, accounting for approxi-mate-ly 2.3 per cent of Gross State Product and around 15 600 jobs. Furthermore, Defence technology has under-pinned the development of the State's highly successful commer-cial electronics and IT industry sectors.
 The Premier is aware of ADTEC98 and welcomes the oppor-tunity it presents to profile the State as a leader in high technology defence electronics, IT and surveillance systems and thus enhance the potential for local high technology defence industry to con-tinue to grow and make even greater contributions to the economy and well being of South Australia.