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Australia needs to advocate for domestic industry growth and increased export potential, Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery Pat Conroy said in recent statements.
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The Minister for International Development and the Pacific was speaking to defence industry representatives at the Defence Connect Defence Industry Development Strategy (DIDS) Summit 2024 on 6 August.
Minister Conroy said the nation needs to better utilise the Australian Defence Force, Defence, and government to back up the domestic defence industry.
“We’re not forward enough in advocating Australian industry ... using the reputation of the sovereign Australian government to sell Aussie products overseas,” he said.
“To give you an example, we don’t use ministers enough to promote Australian industry like other countries do. But more importantly, we don’t use the ADF enough. We’ve got a great network of defence attachés throughout the world that are respected. We’ve got embeds in lots of allies’ services.
“And if you look at how the United Kingdom does it, their military officers are half export promotion officers and half military officers. So, using the ADF to support our exports and using the backing of the Australian government.
“That deal I did around the biggest defence exporting history in the country, the $3 billion Rheinmetall Boxer deal, that’s not a contract between Rheinmetall Australia and the German government, that’s a government between the German government and the Australian government and I subcontract to Rheinmetall Australia to deliver that.
“That’s our version of foreign military sale where we give confidence to the German government that those Boxers will be delivered on time and on budget because it’s backed by the Australian government.”
Minister Conroy also described the Australian defence industry as an hourglass with several defence primes at the top, many small-to-medium enterprises and significant demand for more medium-sized companies.
“One of the key goals of the Defence Industry Development Strategy is to grow SMEs into medium-size companies,” he said.
“I described the Australian defence industry as a bit of an hourglass – we’ve got a narrow layer of primes at the top, it narrows rapidly to a few medium-size Australian companies and a big broad base of Australian SMEs. And a lot of them are on the S side of SMEs.
“We want to grow them into the medium-size companies. That’s why we’ve got $150 million in grants. That’s why the IIP will be changed to support the SDIPS. That’s why we’re doing record numbers of global supply chain initiatives.
“Because probably the easiest way for SMEs to export isn’t exporting a full product – as critical as that is – it’s exporting as part of a supply chain for a larger company. And that’s why we’ve more than doubled the number of global supply chain.”
