Page 4 - Australian Defence Magazine March-April 2022

4 EDITORIAL
MARCH-APRIL 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
MISSING OPPORTUNITIES
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
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THE FEDERAL Government launched its De- fence Export Strategy amid much fanfare in January 2018 in recognition of one of the major problems facing the local defence in- dustry – and that is the fact that the require- ments of the ADF alone are not adequate to sustain and grow a healthy eco-system.
According to the government’s Defence Export Strategy factsheet released at the time, new markets and opportunities to diversify are needed to realise the full po- tential to develop and foster innovation to support the needs of the ADF into the future. “Exports will provide our defence industry with greater certainty of future investment and support high-end manu- facturing jobs for Australians for genera- tions to come,” the document states.
And there are significant obstacles in the way of Australian business wishing to tap into the lucrative overseas market – and again you can read about just two of these in this issue.
Furthermore, what actually constitutes a defence export? For a time, access to the global supply chains of the large (mainly American) primes was viewed as the holy grail for small to medium enterprises here in Australia. But while such work is undoubt- edly good for the business itself and the lo- cal economy, does it satisfy the goals of the export strategy? Do we want to be known simply as ‘widget makers to the world’?
Other enterprises here have invested significantly to support the ADF’s plat- forms and have developed expertise the envy of many primes, yet when a platform is retired – and I’ll use the ‘Classic’ Hornet as an example here – what becomes of that expertise? There is often a gap between one platform retiring and the next requir- ing the same level of support, particularly in the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) sector.
Local industry has grown up on what are by US standards very small volumes of work, so if a solution is available that will allow Australian companies to ‘export’ their expertise and perform similar low vol- umes of work for the legacy platforms of al- lies and partners (if it benefits both parties to do so), should we encourage that and help bridge the gap for local businesses?
In the February issue of ADM I wrote that sovereign capability is something which shouldn’t be turned on and off like a tap: well, the MRO work done here in Australia is a sovereign capability and it is in danger of being turned off.
Shifting gears, I was fortunate to be able to attend the Singapore Air Show in early February, the first regional trade show (other than Land Forces in a locked- down Australia) in two years and it was great to be out and about and have the opportunity to meet and talk to people in what is an important region for Australia. Let’s hope it will be the first of many op- portunities for us all. ■
“DO WE WANT TO BE KNOWN SIMPLY AS ‘WIDGET MAKERS TO THE WORLD’?”
The strategy – laud- edatthetime–setfive goals to be achieved by 2028, namely: to strengthen the part- nership between gov- ernment and industry to pursue defence export opportunities; sustain Australia’s de- fence industrial capa- bilities across peaks and troughs in domes- tic demand; enable greater innovation and productivity in Austra-
lia’s defence industry to deliver world-lead- ing defence capabilities; maintain the capa- bilityedgeoftheADFandleveragedefence capability development for export opportu- nities; and grow Australia’s defence industry to become a top ten global defence exporter.
Are we on track to meet the lofty 2028 aspirations of the Defence Export Strat- egy? Well, we are now four years into the process and, as you will read in the pages of this issue of ADM, the report card is mixed. Some Australian companies have experienced enduring success on the un- even playing field that is the arms export market – but by and large these companies were doing so before the strategy was re- leased anyway.