Page 34 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec-Jan 2021

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DEFENCE BUSINESS VIEW FROM CANBERRA
DECEMBER 2020 – JANUARY 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
WHEN IS AN
EXPORT A
DEFENCE EXPORT?
Back in early 2018, then Defence Minister Christopher Pyne launched a new defence exports strategy intended to lift Australia from a middling performer to a very serious player among the world’s gunrunning nations.
A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT | CANBERRA
THAT’S gunrunning the sense of actively exporting defence equipment. Australia isn’t a big exporter of actual guns, though we once were, selling large numbers of L1A1 rifles to Commonwealth nations to equip their security forces.
Australia does export some sporting rifles to the US, along with a large quantity of propellant powder used by US manufacturers and individuals to make ammunition and thus sustain the constitutional right of Americans to openly carry AR-15s.
launch.
So how are we doing?
The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) re- ports that as at 2019, we ranked at 19, which is def- initely a move in the right direction. However, it
could also be within the margin of error, given the extremely rubbery nature of any statistics surrounding defence exports. Then Defence Minister Christopher Pyne launched the new Australian defence export strategy in January 2018, de- claring this an ambitious, positive plan to boost Australian industry, increase investment and create more jobs for Aus-
tralian businesses.
But it was this section which attracted most immediate
attention.
“The landmark document sets out the policy and strategy to
make Australia one of the top 10 global defence exporters with- in the next decade,” the minister said in his media statement.
The ANAO mostly gave Defence’s design and implementa- tion of the strategy a tick, with a few provisos.
But did it find the headline grabbing ambition to become a top 10 global defence exporter to be a product of detailed research of the global market, an assessment of Australia’s defence industry sector and their prospects to grow exports and supplant a significant number of established players. Well not quite.
“The inclusion of objective five growing Australia’s de- fence industry to become a top ten global defence exporter reflects an announcement by the Minister for Defence Industry, and was not supported by analysis or data,” the report said.
So, the Minister’s office grabbed an opportunity to turn an otherwise dry strategy announcement into one which actu- ally grabbed some attention.
The strategy did say that the government recognised that becoming a top 10 global defence exporter would be chal- lenging and ultimately depended on the actions of industry.
This target, it said, was a clear signal of the Government’s ambition and its willingness to work with Australia’s defence industry to strive for new levels of success.
The new Australian Defence Export Office is up and run- ning, the new Defence Export Advocate, former coalition defence minister David Johnston, has been appointed and is getting on with the job, COVID permitting since the launch of the strategy.
Just eight Australian companies were listed in the 2017 defence sales catalogue but 170 in the 2020 edition. As at June, $213 million had been loaned for defence export fi- nance through the Defence Export Facility.
It certainly appears that Australian defence companies are interested in getting out to the world.
The big challenge is acquiring decent data. ANAO said strategy objectives and initiatives developed by Defence were largely supported by research and consultation but were not informed by robust defence export data.
As at June, Defence had not established baseline data for defence exports or methodology for measuring de- fence exports.
Anyone with any knowledge of this arcane field, appre- ciates the difficulty of compiling truly reliable data on de- fence exports. Case in point – you are reading ADM’s Top 40 edition, itself a voluntary survey and all the vagaries that involves.
Part of that is arriving at a useful definition of what de- fence exports. Some stuff and services are indisputably a defence export but it becomes more complex when equip- ment is exported temporarily or when items straddle the dual use line.
If Australia can’t determine current annual defence ex- ports any more precisely than “in the order of $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion” – the figures cited in the strategy - what chance has the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the well-regarded NGO which moni- tors global defence spending and ranks defence export- ing nations. ■
Anyway – to defence exports. We’ve had more than two years to up our game and achieve the ambition of lifting Australia to the top 10 of global defence export- ing nations, up from 20 at time of the strategy
“THE STRATEGY DID SAY THAT THE GOVERNMENT RECOGNISED THAT BECOMING A TOP 10 GLOBAL DEFENCE EXPORTER WOULD BE CHALLENGING AND ULTIMATELY DEPENDED ON THE ACTIONS OF INDUSTRY.”