Australia’s Victoria state details vision statement for electric aviation

A vision state­ment for next-gen­er­a­tion elec­tric avi­a­tion in Vic­to­ria details sig­nif­i­cant poten­tial eco­nom­ic and envi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits and sets out a path to build an advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) indus­try in the Aus­tralian state.

Min­is­ter for Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Tim Pal­las has unveiled the state­ment which out­lines the Government’s plan to con­sult with the com­mu­ni­ty, busi­ness­es and the Com­mon­wealth Gov­ern­ment on appro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tions and safe­ty mea­sures.

It high­lights oppor­tu­ni­ties in logis­tics, emer­gency ser­vices, health­care and region­al ser­vice deliv­ery, includ­ing boost­ing jobs and eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty. Con­sul­ta­tion with indus­try and the com­mu­ni­ty to devel­op AAM reg­u­la­tions, plan­ning and safe­guards is sched­uled to begin in 2023.

A report by Deloitte Access Eco­nom­ics found the intro­duc­tion of the AAM sec­tor into the state could increase Victoria’s gross state prod­uct by $2.8 bil­lion, cre­ate 1,300 new jobs annu­al­ly and pro­vide cost sav­ings of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars.

AAM would encour­age invest­ments in zero-emis­sion trans­port tech­nol­o­gy by boost­ing skills and pro­vid­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for research and inno­va­tion in the pri­vate and uni­ver­si­ty sec­tors to sup­port the state’s tar­get to achieve net-zero emis­sions by 2050.

The state­ment pri­ori­tis­es com­mu­ni­ty ameni­ty and ben­e­fits, and empha­sis­es ener­gy secu­ri­ty through greater use of renew­ables such as bat­ter­ies and hydro­gen.

Vic­to­ria has joined the World Eco­nom­ic Forum AAM Coali­tion of Cities and Regions to share knowl­edge and lessons in sup­port of a coor­di­nat­ed and con­sis­tent approach to glob­al AAM ecosys­tems. Oth­er mem­bers include Paris, Los Ange­les, Sao Paulo, Ams­ter­dam, Incheon and Orlan­do.

In late 2021, Vic­to­ria and the fed­er­al Depart­ment of Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty and Airser­vices Aus­tralia estab­lished a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing to col­lab­o­rate on fos­ter­ing the devel­op­ment of the AAM sec­tor.

Tim Pal­las said: “Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to pro­vide major ben­e­fits in the form of jobs and secure sup­ply chains, and the work we are doing now is cru­cial to how the sec­tor will ulti­mate­ly look.

“AAM com­ple­ments our invest­ments in hydro­gen and bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy and broad­ens the state’s skill base. We will be con­sult­ing wide­ly, start­ing with the com­mu­ni­ty and includ­ing our part­ners in the Albanese Gov­ern­ment and avi­a­tion author­i­ties.”

The Albanese gov­ern­ment is the fed­er­al exec­u­tive gov­ern­ment of Aus­tralia, led by Prime Min­is­ter Antho­ny Albanese of the Aus­tralian Labor Par­ty.