Setting Australia’s ‘quiet achiever’ defence industry up for long-term success

Defence industry is the quiet achiever of Australia’s industrial landscape.

It’s an engine of innovation, a stalwart of domestic manufacturing and an employer of thousands of Australians, from the cities to the regions.

Over my tenure as Minister, I’ve heard a lot of different views and perspectives on what we need to do to strengthen Defence industry to support the ADF.

But no one has argued with me about the central strategic assessment made by the Defence Strategic Review.

Everyone I’ve spoken with accepts that we face a more challenging strategic environment, that our strategic warning time has fallen away, and we need to urgently transition to an integrated and focused ADF force as we respond to the challenges we see in our region.

The Defence Industry Development Strategy is an essential component of this response.

The Strategy identifies seven Sovereign Defence Industrial Priorities, which include detail on the industrial capabilities that Australian defence industry must deliver.
These priorities are more carefully defined than the SICPs that precede them.

VIEW ALL

These are clearer priorities and come with a time frame that sets out when Defence is seeking to develop and access each industrial capability. The seven Sovereign Defence Industrial Priorities are:

• Maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade of Australian Defence Force aircraft;
• Continuous naval shipbuilding and sustainment;
• Sustainment and enhancement of the combined-arms land system;
• Domestic manufacture of guided weapons, explosive ordnance and munitions;
• Development and integration of autonomous systems;
• Integration and enhancement of battlespace awareness and management systems; and
• Test and evaluation, certification and systems assurance.

To deliver on these priorities we will reform Defence procurement with a focus on simplification and speed.

We won’t compromise on governance, but we are going to reduce the time it takes to receive project and contract approvals to deliver capability at speed.

I’ve heard loud and clear the feedback from industry that we need to improve Defence’s application of the Australian Standard for Defence Contracting – ASDEFCON - framework.

Defence will undertake progressive reforms to the ASDEFCON suite of documents and templates to make it easier, faster and more cost effective for industry to work with Defence.

We are also going to look even more closely at establishing more strategic partnerships with industry, including to combine related acquisition and sustainment activities where it makes sense so that we can offer more certainty and create economies of scale.

Ever since I started as Minister for Defence Industry, business has spoken to me about the confusing defence grant arrangements.

So, we’ve streamlined the grants into a single Defence Industry Development Grant with four streams which we have tailored to build Australian industrial capability in the Sovereign Defence Industrial Priorities.

Security is a major threat facing defence industry so it’s a major focus of the Strategy.

It’s not negotiable: security and cyber-worthiness have to be incorporated into the core of any and every capability, product, innovation or technological advancement from design to launch to maintenance. All businesses in Defence industry have to be able to withstand the rapidly evolving threat environment.

The new Defence Industry Development Grant – Security Stream will provide support for business to uplift security and strengthen their ability to meet increasingly rigorous security requirements in Australia and overseas.

The Australian Industry Capability (AIC) Program will continue, and Defence contracts will continue to require AIC plans because that’s essential to growing the Australia’s sovereign defence industrial base and will support the Albanese Government’s broad-based Buy Australian Plan.

You can expect the Government to be proactive in promoting the integration of our sovereign defence industrial base into global supply chains because that’s what our strategic needs demand.

And most importantly, the Strategy will drive Defence to engage directly with industry right from the beginning, including at the classified level, to facilitate faster and better-informed decisions by industry and Defence.

The Strategy also includes plans to work with industry to build the workforce that will deliver the Sovereign Defence Industrial Priorities.

We’re taking a collaborative national approach, with targeted investment to identify and support the development of a skilled defence industry workforce.

I want to thank everyone who’s taken the time to speak to me or write to me directly, or to engage with the Department as it developed the Defence Industry Development Strategy.

The Strategy is much better as a result.

This is not a ‘set and forget’ Strategy. I’m establishing a tripartite defence industry council that I’ll chair so I can hear directly from industry and unions as we roll out this whole of nation approach to developing the sovereign defence industrial base we require for our national security.

I encourage everyone in the industry to download the Strategy from the Defence website.

I look forward to working with industry to implement the Defence Industry Development Strategy, and develop an innovative, resilient and competitive Australian defence industrial base for a stronger, more secure Australia.

Pat Conroy MP is the Minister for Defence Industry, Minister for International Development and the Pacific and the Federal Member for Shortland.