Page 130 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec21-Jan22

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DECEMBER 2021-JANUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
capabilities that are most critical to Defence in order for us to defend our nation. This means Australia must have sovereignty over - or, more specifically - access to and con- trol of the essential skills, technology, intellectual property, financial resources and infrastructure to deliver these in- dustrial capabilities whenever they are required. We have brought in a number of policies and programs to develop our sovereign Australian industry capability to support Australian economy, to build a stronger defence industrial base and to strengthen our supply chain security.
First there is the AIC program which supports Australian industry participation in defence procurement and projects by ensuring Australian options are not designed out of ca- pability solutions. Implementation of the enhanced AIC contractual framework and AIC audit program, these are two key planks of my Five Pillars approach to strengthening our defence industry; they give greater effect to this. And the government has now identified 14 SICPs so we can pri- oritise resources towards the areas of greatest importance for the ADF. Where applicable the SICPs inform decision
making in defence procurement and provide assurance to industry of Defence’s long-term priorities.
The development of the industry plan that has been under the priorities, including consultation with stakeholders, also including industry and academia and, finally, the Defence Export Strategy is also helping Australian industry to access those export opportunities and broadening their customer base and just increasing their resilience and competitiveness.
ADM: How will you position Australian industry to export their products and services?
PRICE: As we would expect, the pandemic has at times made this more challenging than it would otherwise have been but as we emerge from the pandemic, boosting the export of our defence industry is going to be a very strong focus of mine.
We need to position Australian defence industry as robust and more internationally competitive. As I mentioned, the initiatives in the Defence Export Strategy are helping in- dustry to broaden its customer base and get access to export
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