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The Defence and National Security Committee of the Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL) has launched a new report, calling on Australia to urgently develop a locally based major defence industry.
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The paper, prepared for the RSL’s Defence and National Security Committee, titled Building a Sustainable Sovereign Industrial Defence Capability, is calling on successive Commonwealth governments to have greater ambition for the Australian Defence industry.
As part of this, the paper highlighted the urgency for Australia to develop one or more large Tier 1 national security and defence and advanced manufacturing primes.
The RSL Defence and National Security Committee is chaired by Lieutenant General (Ret’d) Peter Leahy AC and the paper’s lead author is Vice Admiral (Ret’d) Peter Jones AO DSC RAN.
RSL National president Greg Melick said the Australian government had embarked on a major reorientation of Defence policy, Australian Defence Force capabilities and Defence industry policy settings.
Melick said, “The RSL believes that the new policy settings could be further strengthened to better enable Australia’s ability to defend itself in any sustained conflict, through the creation of one or more Australian Tier 1 national security and advanced manufacturing prime system integrators, or Australian defence prime.”
A central highlight was the comparison between Sweden and Australia, where Sweden, with a significantly smaller population and economy when compared to Australia, has developed a global prime in Saab that is delivering capability generally quicker and cheaper to that nation’s defence force.
“Our paper contends that the absence of even one Australian defence prime has led to poor project outcomes, particularly in the naval sector. It has also resulted in billions of dollars needlessly going offshore at the expense of Australian jobs and national resilience,” Melick said.
As part of this call to arms, the RSL has called on increased bipartisan support to help support the development of Australian defence primes, stressing the timing amid ongoing changes in the nation’s defence industrial base and the policy and regulatory frameworks that underpin the Defence Industry Development Strategy and the government’s related initiatives.
Melick said, “Australia needs to return to a position where it does have its own national defence primes so that it can have a truly robust capability that can deliver capability to the ADF in a steady, cost-effective way with managed schedule and cost risks. This should be an expectation of every Australian taxpayer. It is something that other G-20 economies take as a given.”
