Page 120 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2023

120 FROM THE SOURCE PAT CONROY
DECEMBER 2022-JANUARY 2023 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
just be about supporting excellent technologies. We don’t have a 10-year warning horizon and we don’t have resourc- es that you see in larger nations, so we need to be much more sharply focused on capabilities and technologies that are critical into the future. We need to be narrower and provide more depth and that’s the conversation I need to lead the Australian taxpayer and defence industry on, be- cause that means that not everyone is going to get a prize.
ADM: What challenges and opportunities do you see on the horizon for Defence and industry?
MINISTER CONROY: I think obviously work-
force is one. The second one is more focus;
view, but also to allow defence industry to use their re- sources better.
Fourth is security; access to technologies from overseas that we need and a big part of my recent trip to the United States was talking about how we can work better to grow the industrial base of Australia as well as the US.
ADM: Do you have any closing remarks?
MINISTER CONROY: I think it’s important to set the con- text for this, which is that the new Australian Government
is committed to spending at least two per cent of GDP on defence. We’re committed to meeting the great strategic challenges. We face the greatest strategic uncertainty since 1945 and defence industry is a critical part- ner for the Government in facing these chal- lenges. It is not an afterthought; it can never be an afterthought and that’s why we’re link- ing the DSR to the Defence Industry Devel- opment Strategy. As we reshape our entire strategic approach, we need to reshape our
industry policy, have everything aligned up to this goal of dealing with the strategic uncertainty, backed up and paid for by that two per cent of GDP. ■
BELOW: Pat Conroy speaks with Austal apprentices at the Henderson Maritime Complex in Western Australia
that means some in industry may miss out,
but it’s one of the things I’m really keen to
lead a conversation on. Defence industry
have raised this with me directly, so I be-
lieve businesses that miss out will accept it.
What industry has told me is that what they
want is early and absolute decisions; so, we
don’t waste their time if they don’t have a
chance of winning a contract or having their technology developed. Their time and resources are finite and valu- able, they don’t want to waste them. Now that’s a challenge to be part of that conversation, and it’s a conversation that in many ways may be painful or difficult to have.
Third is speeding up the acquisition cycle. That’s some- thing that is essential from a national security point of
“WE DON’T HAVE A 10- YEAR WARNING HORIZON AND WE DON’T HAVE RESOURCES THAT YOU SEE IN LARGER NATIONS”
DEFENCE