Right: Minister Dominello announces the new Location+ strategy at the CRCSI conference. Seated, left to right: Narelle Underwood, NSW Surveyor General; Wayne Patterson, Director Surveying & Cadastral Programs; and Bruce Thompson, Executive Director, NSW Spatial Services.
The New South Wales Minister for Innovation and Regulation, Victor Dominello, has described spatial as “one of those special classes of data,” while launching a new spatially-informed initiative called Location+. Among other things, the Location+ strategy, aims to establish the state of New South Wales as the leading Australian jurisdiction for location intelligence service and products.
Surveying and spatial information has been a focus of the NSW government for the several past years with the advancement of spatial data portal NSW Globe, precise satellite positioning network CORSnet-NSW, and the claim of becoming the first Australian state or territory to release all Foundation Spatial Data as open data.
Dominello announced the Location+ strategy recently at the Australia and New Zealand CRCSI Conference in Sydney, addressing the NSW government’s Digital Transformation Agenda and, specifically, its viewpoint on spatial information.
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To date, NSW’s Digital Transformation Agenda has established initiatives such as the NSW Data Analytics Centre; the NSW Government ICT Strategy, Digital+; and Data NSW.
Surveyor General of NSW, Narelle Underwood, will be appearing at Locate17 to chair a special session on surveying.
“The critical factor behind all these initiatives is data,” explained Dominello. “Data for decision-making, data for improved policy development, data for improved operational performance and spatial data is one critical part of that data ‘lake’.”
“Spatial data has two levels of use,” the minister continued. “There is an enormous range of spatial data – environmental, socio-economic, natural resource, emergency management, infrastructure, planning – that is valuable in its own right. However, spatial is one of those special classes of data that acts as an integrator and value-ads, tremendously amplifying the range of uses any particular data set can be put to, as well as tremendously increasing the value derived from it.”
The latest on the agenda will be Location+, an initiative that aims to drive the use and innovation of spatial information by outlining key objectives, actions and deliverables for the spatial sector.
Specifically, Location+ NSW will aim to achieve the following:
- NSW as the lead Australian jurisdiction for location intelligence service delivery and products
- Vision and roadmap to develop the NSW Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
- Roadmap to achieving a single state-wide cadastre – Cadastre NSW.
Mr Dominello described Location+ as the spatial specific complement to Digital+, the NSW overall ICT and digital Strategy. Location+ builds on the 2013-2015 NSW Location Intelligence Strategy.
Mr Dominello said the Location+ strategy will build on established positioning services, including NSW’s CORSnet positioning infrastructure, which he described as “world class,” as well as multi-GNSS developments and the positioning technologies underlying the future of driverless vehicles.
“Our investment in spatial data as infrastructure, allows us to…deliver services fairly, equitably and efficiently, and to better plan for our future,” Mr Dominello added.
“Improved use of spatial information has the potential to support NSW businesses to contribute to the state’s budget and economy, as well as enable the public sector to provide better services.”
