Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the representative for Goldstein, it's a great privilege to be able to speak on this important issue and support the resolution by the member for Fisher. Our modern defence capability is the sum of multiple individual efforts across industry and government. Small and medium enterprises are the foundation of Australian innovation, Mr Deputy Speaker Laundy, and I know you know that better than anybody. I have so many different Defence contractors and companies and those who supply goods and services to Defence companies all across the south-east of Melbourne, many the legacy, originally, of the car-manufacturing sector. There are thousands of businesses that employ even more Australians in pursuit of, as part of this strategy, the defence of the Commonwealth. We know that these business operators are brave individuals who are patient and motivated to keep pushing the envelope so much to be able to deliver the defence industry Australia needs.

One example in the Goldstein electorate is Task Management Solutions in Brighton East, an engineering consultancy firm which undertook $350,000 worth of work for Defence last financial year—a simple defence company being able to provide the engineering services to secure the nation. The defence industry will form a part of our economy's shift towards more service and manufacturing exports, particularly those with higher-valued outputs. The Australian industry cannot sustain itself on the needs of the Australian Defence Force alone. New markets and opportunities to diversify are required to help unlock the full potential of our defence industry to grow, to export, to innovate and to meet, in the process, Australia's future defence needs.

Exports will provide our defence industry with greater certainty of future investment and support for high-end manufacturing jobs for Australians for generations to come. We know what the strategic objectives of this strategy is. The strategic goals over the next decade, to 2028, are to strengthen the partnership between the Australian government and industry to pursue defence export opportunities; to sustain Australia's defence industrial capabilities across peaks and troughs in domestic demand; to enable greater innovation and productivity in Australia's defence industry; to deliver world-leading defence capabilities; to maintain the capability edge of the Australian Defence Force; to leverage defence capability development for export opportunities; and to grow Australia's defence industry to become a top 10 global defence exporter.

That has always been one of the enduring strengths of a free open market economy. It's not just the opportunity to be able to grow your exports, though that is good, and it's not just the opportunity to be able to build a domestic industry to meet that demand, which is also good; it's also the power to transfer technology across boundaries so that we can always be at the cutting edge—not just at the cutting edge of being able to produce goods but also of being able to import them into our domestic processes—so that Australians, from whatever sector and whatever industry, even those that are allied to the Defence Force sector, are in a position to have world-class technology integrated into their own processes. What we know from the world over—there's been lots of analysis in the United States and in Israel—is that, when you have a strong defence force capability industry, there are allied benefits down the road for other allied industries through the skills and technology that are developed, maintained, and transferred and which can be harnessed for other domestic civil activities.

The strategy that this government is implementing provides one of the foundational pillars for the future of Australian industrial growth into the 21st century. It's to provide the opportunity to foster the minds and the skills to be able to build the manufacturing sector of the future and the service based skills, the technology skills and the engineering skills to be used not only in domestic defence but also to aid other industries critical to this nation's future success. That's the success of this government. This government has its policy priorities right.

See this speech in context