Green Party information and technology spokesperson Gareth Hughes launched a component of the Green Party’s Smart Green Innovation package on 9 June.
It includes a plan to support and develop 3D printing, develop a digital manufacturing strategy, and “empower” school students to use 3D digital manufacturing.
“This component, like the Green Party’s proposed structural timber award, is a blueprint for the future,” says Hughes. “The world is changing, we need to change with it and invest more in smart green innovation like digital manufacturing.
“We need to be investing more into smart green manufacturing and digital manufacturing technologies like 3D printing, which offer new economic opportunities.
“Other countries are investing significant and considerable attention in digital manufacturing in areas like 3D printing and New Zealand risks being left behind if we don't develop a national strategy.
“The Green Party will institute a taskforce to establish a digital manufacturing strategy for New Zealand, one part of our blueprint for a smart green economy.”
The Party says that because manufacturing accounts for about 16 percent of global GDP, or $11 trillion, there is a real opportunity for New Zealand to “leverage its existing manufacturing niche and design expertise to gain a slice of this market”.
Hughes says countries such as the US, the UK, China, Singapore, and some states in Australia have devoted significant resources to encouraging 3D printing industries and research.
He says: “As the late professor Paul Callaghan said, ‘New Zealand’s path to prosperity lies in technology niches, and 3D printing offers one potential niche for us - a country that specialises in innovation and design, and mitigates our distance from markets’.
“There may be big advantages for countries that adopt 3D printing early. Other countries are clearly investing significant sums into this technology and it is important New Zealand does not miss out.
“3D printing and other digital manufacturing technologies offer a viable and profitable area for New Zealand’s manufacturing sector and for economic diversification.
“New Zealand urgently needs to move on from the limited current debate about printing ‘guns and gold’, and start work on a national digital manufacturing strategy.
“Without a national strategy to embrace and foster this technology, New Zealand risks missing out on the full opportunity of the additive printing economic opportunity. “New Zealand needs to put in place steps now to make sure in the future we can profit from designing the products, not just importing designs and printing them.”
