Conroy shares rare glimpse behind the Defence iron curtain

Minister Conroy spoke candidly about “picking the winners” strategy of defence technology development, the AUKUS projects, and future planning for Australian Defence Force recruitment during a question-and-answer session at the 2024 ASPI Defence Conference on 4 June.

Speaking about the recent federal government announcement to expand recruitment criteria to allow eligible permanent residents from New Zealand (from July) and from the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States to join the Australian Defence Force (from January 2025), he said that program would also eventually apply to Pacific countries if they were interested.

“That announcement today will also allow permanent residents from countries within the Pacific to serve in the military from 2025 onwards.

“That’s not all we’re doing. We’re also exploring other options of having Pacific Island residents serve in the Australian military. I think that’s a win‑win, and we’ve got many Pacific leaders who are very keen to do that.

“So, first step is obviously New Zealand, which is a Pacific country, but other Pacific countries, permanent residents of those countries within Australia will be able to apply to join next year, and then there’s other pathways that we’re still developing with other options.”

Minister Conroy also went about addressing defence industry funding concerns during the meeting.

“The answer is we have to pick winners (for the nation’s defence funding),” he said.

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“We have to pick winners for two reasons: one, time demands that. We do not have the time for lots of blue sky ideas to bubble up. We’ve got a broader industrial ecosystem that supports that, we’ve got the CSIRO, we’re got the R&D tax incentive that is all designed to support blue sky research. We’ve got our university ecosystem for that. We don’t have the time and we don’t have the resources to focus on that.

“The US spends about 13 per cent of its Defence budget on innovation, the UK 8 per cent. When we came to power, it was 3 per cent, we’ve increased it, so we’ve increased it quite significantly, but still not to their scale.

“So with that and the deteriorating strategic challenges, we have decided to focus on things that can be deployed in four or five years to actually give us that sense of urgency and delivery.

“So I understand why people feel like we’re picking winners, we are, but I’ve also taken the message from industry, which is the second-best answer after a yes is a fast no, and that’s what we’re doing, and we’re doing it with – we announced a project around sovereign uncrewed aerial system last year, we announced it in August. We’ve funded 11 companies in October, we had a fly‑off in April, and that will flow through to a funded project.

“We’re moving at speed and part of that speed is being much more focused on what we can do in the here and now and that’s really the focus in the NDS and the IIP ... We are delivering additional capability funded out of the IIP in the next two years, not in the next two decades, in the next two years, with Ghost Shark, with GMLRS, there’s five years for general purpose frigate, accelerating HIMARS, all those capabilities, Tomahawk being integrated. All those things are being filled in the next few years because the funding in the new IIP, not in two decades’ time.”

During the meeting, Minister Conroy also elaborated that the Ghost Sharks program, funded through the Navy and DSTG, is expected to enter full rate of production by the end of next year and the Australian government is already working within AUKUS Pillar II programs to share algorithms around sound signatures on P-8 Poseidon aircraft.

In addition, Minister Conroy was questioned about the repositioning of Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator within Defence, as ASCA faces speculation of significant budget underspending.

“It’s fair to say that the policy we took to the last election was effectively an Australian version of DARPA. Now when I was sworn in ... I had a look at it and after talking to key players, I thought the model was more closely aligned with the US Defence Innovation Unit,” he said.

“(Initially) I heard the feedback about the previous ecosystem of grants, the Defence Industry Hub and other things where people were critical of the research, but they were saying it was incredibly painful to get into a grant.

“Most people missed out, and if they were lucky enough to get one, the time for the paperwork took years, and even if there was a successful and proved up the technology, there was no transition into capability. You just had a bright idea that was further up the TLL ladder, but you had no pathway in the service.

“We’ve got limited funding for Defence innovation in this country ... but I want to focus on things that can give asymmetric advantage in the next four to five years.

“That means being very narrowly focused on things that capability managers say if proved up, will give them an advantage on the battlefield, so that’s why it’s within the Defence organisation. But the quid pro quo, unlike a DARPA model, is that by having the capability managers involved at the start, we nail their feet to the floor, when means when the technology gets proved up, it has to have a funded pathway into service so that it doesn’t die in the valley of death of innovation.”