Australia’s rapid reinvention of the domestic manufacturing sector, coupled with a concerted push to develop and value-add to sustainable energy, fuels and critical minerals is equally about securing crucial supply chains in increasingly uncertain times as it is about national economic and environmental policy, argues deputy prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles.
In the most comprehensive repositioning of Australia’s defence strategy and posture since the Albanese government was elected, Marles has spelled out the government’s assessment that key onshore production capability for energy and advanced ordnance like Tomahawk missiles must be put in place quickly to hedge against potential future instability in the region as well as in flashpoints in central Europe and the Middle East.
The guts of Marles’ speech – which was cogent and at times forceful – was that although Australia has great strategic and regional allies, it also has great challenges and that defence strategy must be alive to, like the very real threat of military and economic supply chain disruptions, and adjust accordingly.
“We have key exposures,” Marles said. “Around 85% of our liquid fuel needs are supplied by imported refined product, most of it from just three countries: Korea, Singapore and Malaysia. We are literally dependent upon this sea line of communication.”
The defence overhaul includes the spend, which has gone up, too. Marles revealed another $50 billion will be ploughed into defence over the next 10 years to accelerate missiles and ships that carry missiles as well as drones and air defence.
To achieve this goal, Australia, the Australian Defence Force, the government and industry (supported by or run by the government) need to act immediately and put in place key foundations Marles described as “minimum viable capability”. This is a riff on the agile software development tenet of ‘minimum viable product’, or the foundational set of functions and processes from which others rise.
The theme is not a new one for Defence, which has long had issues with major projects being beset by delays and cost overruns where the project deliverable or capability can be obsolete upon delivery.
To break that cycle, capability development will focus on getting a robust core function established quickly and then added to as and when needed rather than the finished product coming as one big drop.
Marles stressed that these changes around key developments were occurring now, not in five years, even if elements of AUKUS pillar 1 were still some time away.
“Infrastructure at HMAS Stirling in Perth and the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Adelaide is being built today.
“The Australian Submarine Agency exists today. Australian submariners are being trained to operate our future nuclear-powered submarines in the US today.
“Our industrial workforce, which will maintain and build our submarines, is being trained in the US and the UK today.
“And the sovereign submarine partners that will build and maintain our future submarines have been chosen and are up and running today.”
Given the defence minister’s speech was to launch the new biennial National Defence Strategy, the new direction-setting mechanism that is set to replace the defence white paper process, it made sense to spell out how the practical iteration of the Defence Strategic Review would function and focus.
The main reaffirmation was that Australia is moving from a “balanced” defence force posture to a “focused” one. Marles characterised the previously “balanced” force as one “capable of undertaking a broad range of functions in a broad range of environments, be it participating in a multinational effort in Afghanistan led by others through to leading regional missions in Timor-Leste or Solomon Islands”.
“There is now one job at hand: transforming our future capability such that Australia can resist coercion and maintain our way of life in a much less certain region and world. The ADF needs to be entirely focused on this.”
If one were to use a food analogy (and one shouldn’t), with options for burgers and fried chicken, if the ADF was previously a smorgasbord where animal protein was evenly weighted between beast, fish and fowl, the new menu looks more like a seafood buffet with options for burgers and fried chicken.
Marles didn’t shy away from the fact cuts have been made, but argued that force projection was now the critical mission at hand, rather than stocking up on motorised armour.
“Last year we announced the reduction in the number of new Infantry Fighting Vehicles from 450 to 129,” Marles said.
“This was on the basis that there was no capacity to ever move 450 Infantry Fighting Vehicles off our shores. This meant they would never contribute to Australia’s ability to project [force]. This is just one example of the decisions we have been prepared to take.”
Those buggies made in Queensland now look like they are headed back to Germany, which is restocking on the back of supplying its own regional allies and Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion and subsequent hot war.
Marles also cryptically dropped that the government was “taking $1.4 billion from planned enhancements to defence facilities across Canberra and re-investing this in our operational bases, including northern base infrastructure such as those at RAAF Bases Darwin, Townsville and Learmonth”. While there are a few RAAF hangars at Canberra airport, the rest of the Defence Estate in the town is largely offices.
At an equipment and logistics level, there are big savings to be had in terms of automation, though a lot of this detail is down in the weeds of the National Defence Strategy’s companion Integrated Investment Program.
While there are cuts aplenty, there’s also new money with Marles earmarking another $1 billion funding increase in the May Budget for capability over the next four years.
A chunk of that will go towards missiles but $200 million is slated for “Defence to go after more cutting-edge, asymmetric robotic and autonomous systems, so they can be tested and deployed in the field earlier”, Marles said.
“This includes autonomous aerial munition delivery vehicles; Blue Bottle, an uncrewed surface vessel; and Ghost Shark, an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle and a great example of Australian defence industry innovation.”
All of those capabilities replace far more expensive ones or create new advantages and intelligence, though the “autonomous aerial munition delivery vehicles” are the killer drones Australia has been conspicuously lacking for many years.
“This funding will allow Defence to uplift long-overdue upgrades to its theatre logistics like storage, logistics networks and infrastructure to be ready in times of need,” Marles said.
“Not all of these investments will be headline-grabbing. But they are also the kinds of necessary investments that cannot be delivered quickly when you need them most.”
