Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Defence Industry. Will the minister outline to the House how the Morrison government is supporting the road to recovery from the economic effects of the pandemic by backing Australian jobs through the investment in our defence industry?

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Braddon for his question and acknowledge his 20 years of distinguished service in the Australian Army, and I thank him for his passion for the Australian defence industry. The Morrison government is supporting our road to recovery, supporting Australians jobs with its $270 billion investment in our Australian defence capability. In February I announced our plan to put small defence industry front and centre with our decision-making. Over the last six months, even during these challenging COVID times, we have been able to achieve systematic changes with respect to decision making and defence industry.

I have three that I want to mention. Firstly, reform of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules. This sounds like a very dry, 'financy' department type of issue but let me tell you that the defence industry—

Mr Keogh interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Burt is now warned!

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

participants in Australia understand how important it is that when Defence now is considering procurement decisions they will consider Australian industry content, they will consider sovereign industrial capability and they will consider workforce issues and skilling issues. So, this is incredibly important to the Australian defence industry, and industry has welcomed these changes. Secondly, we have delivered an independent ARC audit program so that we now will be able to audit companies on their ARC obligations. This means that if they do not comply they are less likely to get more work from this Australian government with respect to defence industry. Thirdly, we have finalised our enhanced ARC contractual framework. This makes sure that small and medium-sized Australian defence industries are front and centre when it comes to making defence program decisions in our nation.

Just to illustrate the defence industry capability of our nation: today, with the Minister for Defence, we will proudly announce that Collins Aerospace Australia has delivered its 1,000th infrared imagery capability for the global F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. This is a huge achievement, and we proudly were able to contribute $1 million to a grant program to assist them with this work. We're very proud of our contribution to the F-35 global program—$1.7 billion worth of Australian contracts. Some 50 Australian contractors are involved in the Joint Strike Fighter program, which is supporting some 2,500 Australian jobs.

Every day, we're thinking about what the barriers are to small and medium-sized defence companies in Australia and, one by one, we are knocking them down to make sure those companies are at the centre of our decision-making, supporting Australian jobs. More importantly, we are creating more jobs.