Australia’s defence industry welcomed the release of the Defence Export Strategy and commended the Federal Government’s commitment to growing and developing the industry base.
“The Export Strategy is vitally important for the growth and development of the industry. We cannot survive on domestic Defence contracts alone and must seek global opportunities in order to sustain and enhance our capabilities,” said Defence Teaming Centre CEO Margot Forster.
Minister Pyne has consistently reinforced the Federal Government’s commitment to developing a sovereign shipbuilding capability in Australia and an intent to foster an export-focused defence industry – the Export Strategy certainly supports that.
It is pleasing to see that the strategy provides funding and support for small businesses to expand into global markets. While the Primes play a critical role in supplying defence capability, it will be through the growth and development of our SMEs that Australia becomes a truly sovereign shipbuilding nation capable of exporting.
In order to ensure that both the industry and the nation benefit from this strategy, it is important that the Federal Government give greater consideration to the definition of an Australian business. We must focus our funding and support on those businesses who demonstrate a long term commitment to Australia – simply holding an ABN is not enough.
We would also strongly encourage the Federal Government to release the Sovereign Industrial Capability Framework, a critical piece of the overarching national defence industry strategy.
“The Defence Teaming Centre looks forward to working with the Federal Government to ensure industry takes full advantage of the support and funding provide by the Defence Export Strategy,” said Ms Forster.
