Page 118 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2023

118 FROM THE SOURCE PAT CONROY
DECEMBER 2022-JANUARY 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
they’re poorly defined, there are too many of them and one of the things the Defence Industrial Development Strategy will do is revisit them. Also, we need to link our priori- ties more clearly to the Defence Strategic Review and the AUKUS priorities. We will also detail how we’ll resource them, because at the moment if everything is a priority the nothing is a priority – and that means that we don’t actu- ally invest in the sovereign capabilities we need as a nation.
ADM: Is it about waiting for the outcome of the DSR to put more focus back into the priorities?
MINISTER CONROY: We’re working on them right now as part of the Defence Industry Development Strategy. We’re looking at the number and the definition right now. But the Defence Industry Development Strategy will be re-
leased after the DSR, because it has to be informed by the DSR. One of my main messages to industry from the first day I was appointed is that my focus is on developing Australian industry capability rather than content. So, ca- pability within industry has to link to the capabilities we need. The DSR is the critical input into that.
ADM: How do you understand the difference between content and capability?
MINISTER CONROY: Content is about maximising the amount of money that is spent in Australia from defence projects and, on one hand, that’s a noble cause, we should be aiming to maximise how much we spend in Australia from every dollar of government procurement. We need to maximise Australian content but we need to do it in a
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