Page 52 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2022

52 SMALL TO MEDIUM ENTERPRISES AIDN
JUNE 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
In my opinion Defence is not here to cre- ate an industrial base, Defence is all about capability. Defence finds itself in the unen- viable position of trying to deliver programs in which inevitably there are no allowances for increasing Australian industry develop- ment factored into the program schedule, cost, or risk profile.
There would have to be a transfer of tech- nology, a transfer of knowledge, a transfer of IP and there would have to be some pro- totyping done, and inevitably that cost and that schedule would not be there. What we need is a policy where government actively looks at ensuring there is a proper technolo- gy transfer to Australian industry, with pay- ment and schedule included in the project.
ADM: As equipment becomes increasingly complex, is the SME sector being squeezed?
CLARK: We have a world’s best practice mining industry, a world’s best practice medical industry etc, etc. There’s no reason why Australia can’t have the world’s best prac- tice defence industry. We have the capacity, we have the know-how, we have the intellectual ability to do it. What we don’t appear to have, is a constructive plan to develop
islation, and we’re really pushing for either side of politics to ensure there is a legislative requirement to ensure that Australian industry is included.
To what extent, is the million-dollar question. Our view is that government is talking about creating a sovereign in- dustrial capability and we’re talking about strategic indus- tries that the nation must control. So, a bare minimum is that anything already determined by government to be a strategic industry needs to be legislated.
It’s ridiculous to turn around and say that electronic warfare or acoustics for submarines is a strategic industry capability and then award contracts to foreign-owned com- panies. We need to develop the capability in Australia, oth- erwise it’s no longer a strategic industry capability.
ADM: AIDN – and you as a former submariner - pre- sumably support the construction in Australia of our pro- posed nuclear submarines?
CLARK: From an AIDN perspective there is absolutely no logical reason why those submarines cannot be built here, and we simply reject any argument to the contrary.
ADM: In AIDN’s view, what’s the current strength of the defence SME sector?
CLARK: The sector is very robust. It’s taken some knocks recently, obviously the cancellation of the Attack-class sub- marine hurt, likewise the decisions to withdraw the Tiger and Taipan helicopters and the cancellation of the Sky- Guardian armed drone purchase.
There were a lot of SMEs involved in that and a lot of SMEs have done their money. Government has to be very careful they don’t drive SMEs away from defence into other sectors. Once people go and work in the oil and gas or other sectors, getting them back will be almost impossible. And if you lose your industry, you lose your ability to achieve national resilience and self-reliance. ■
ABOVE: PFG launched its new Sentinel 1100 11-metre tactical watercraft at Indo Pacific 2022
“NOW THAT WE’RE
WORKING CLOSELY TOGETHER, I’VE FOUND DEFENCE TO BE GENUINELY RESPONSIVE AND VERY WILLING TO TRY TO SORT OUT A PROBLEM”
this. We need to look at foreign own- ership. I’m not saying it’s bad that a company is owned by people overseas, but we can’t keep calling it an Austra- lian company. If, for example, we were to ask a company to modify a piece of equipment and it had to seek approval from overseas, that’s foreign control. I don’t think we have got the argument or the debate quite worked out.
We need political intent to create a sovereign indigenous industrial base, and the reality is political intent ex- ists in most countries when it comes
to defence industry. Indeed, most countries have require- ments around this. And AIDN won’t accept the argument that we can’t do it – look at South Korea, Sweden, Israel, Turkey, India – I could go on. All these countries either have a strong defence industrial base or a government intent to create one. If countries that are smaller economically than Australia can achieve this, then so can Australia. We need to change the narrative on this, and it is a narrative driven by foreign-owned multinational companies. What we need to do is to have an industrial plan, a roadmap to achieve it, and government drive and investment to get there. We need to work with our foreign-owned primes to create the indus- trial base and we need to ensure that they are compensated to help us to achieve it.
ADM: What does AIDN hope for from the next government? CLARK: The big one for us is the commitment to expen- diture, and the acquisition of equipment which Canberra has already agreed to purchase. Policy is policy, it’s not leg-
ROYA GHODSI