Rocket said the sector would now like the Government to focus on getting New Zealanders investing in space.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the next Rocket Labs start popping up, we want local investment, not just international investment, backing them.\u201d<\/p>\n
University of Auckland professor of physics Richard Easther said some people in the space community may have been taken aback by Collins\u2019 appointment but she had a reputation for being an effective minister.<\/p>\n
However, he said he was surprised Collins didn\u2019t seem to seek more answers into the $30 million MethaneSAT mission failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was the same person who led the Manawanui and McSkimming reports, both hard-hitting investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n In her valedictory speech<\/a>, Collins, who is leaving politics to head the Law Commission<\/a>, said being \u201cthe first minister for space in the world, or even, dare I say it, the universe\u201d was \u201cpretty cool\u201d and one of the highlights of her 24-year Parliamentary career.<\/p>\n Collins told Newstalk ZB the establishment of a ministerial role showed New Zealand was taking the sector seriously, giving the country an edge and giving her an advantage to get into events a minister of economic development might struggle with.<\/p>\n She said her key achievements included increasing the launch limits from 100 to 1000, giving companies such as Rocket Lab more opportunities with a welcoming regulatory environment, and getting T\u0101whaki National Aerospace Centre operating well.<\/p>\n Collins said sharing her portfolios of defence and space was useful.<\/p>\n \u201cWhether it\u2019s around communications in space, whether it\u2019s around even protecting orbits, all those sorts of things, it\u2019s good to have them both understanding of it and also, of course, the security relating to space is incredibly important.\u201d<\/p>\n Labour\u2019s space spokeswoman Rachel Brooking said it was useful to have a separate space portfolio but questioned why it needed to be tied to defence. She also wanted more transparency about the national interest test for each launch.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we were in government, it wasn\u2019t tied to defence in that same way, so the ministers were economic development ministers rather than defence ministers.\u201d<\/p>\n Incoming Space Minister Chris Penk said he was delighted to have responsibility for a high-value, high-tech, high-growth sector that affects New Zealand every day.<\/p>\n \u201cIt impacts agriculture, productivity, satellite navigation, and emergency and disaster response.\u201d<\/p>\n Penk said the portfolio shows how seriously New Zealand takes space and gives people a chance to interact with a minister who is directly responsible for the sector.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are able to connect different strands of the economy and our society, including our national security, in a way that I think is really important for space.\u201d<\/p>\n Lachlan Rennie is an Auckland-based multimedia journalist for Newstalk ZB covering science, defence, technology, community issues and general news. He previously studied journalism at the New Zealand Broadcasting School before joining NZME in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rocket said the sector would now like the Government to focus on getting New Zealanders investing in space.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,806,10635,36177,1888,2964,42445,7973,6722,12235,111,43,139,69,24637,14901,49478,1560,205,392,223,21146,17450,1530],"class_list":["post-443260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-as","tag-card","tag-collins","tag-first","tag-half","tag-judith","tag-leaves","tag-minister","tag-mixed","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parliament","tag-receives","tag-receiving","tag-report","tag-role","tag-space","tag-the","tag-verdict","tag-worlds","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}