Vince Connelly (Stirling, 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-McCormack government's historic UK-Australia free trade deal will strengthen our economy by creating more jobs and business opportunities for Australians and will open new export opportunities for defence businesses, further strengthening our defence industry?

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

I thank the member for Stirling for his question. It's always a pleasure to get a question from the member for Stirling. And I'd like to recognise and thank him for his outstanding service to our nation in the ADF.

This historic FTA with the UK demonstrates our government's commitment to pursuing new and expanded opportunities for Australian exporters and small businesses, especially in our thriving defence industry. The Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement will deliver significant economic benefits, driving strong growth in the value of Australian exports. Opening up export markets is at the core of our government's economic strategy, and we're focused on delivering even greater access to global markets for our defence businesses.

In 2018 our government launched the Defence Export Strategy. This strategy paves the way for Australian defence businesses to take advantage of the expanding export opportunities right across the globe. When I attended Land Forces last week in Brisbane I had the great pleasure of meeting with veteran owned and Brisbane based Guardtech. Guardtech was founded as recently as 2018 and is a small but growing small business. Guardtech joined me as part of a record Team Australia delegation in 2019 in London at the UK Defence and Security Equipment International trade show. It was there that Guardtech secured a $1.7 million contract with the British army to supply military training systems from Australia. It's companies like Guardtech that are taking advantage of the opportunities from our Defence Export Strategy, like participating in team defence delegations and pitching their work to customers overseas. And now they will reap the benefits of this FTA.

Canberra-based ECLIPS, who also attended the 2019 UK DSEI trade show, caught the eye of the UK Ministry of Defence with their groundbreaking military logistics innovations and capabilities. To ECLIPS's surprise, at the conclusion of the trade show the UK Ministry of Defence literally backed up its truck to the bit of gear that ECLIPS had on display and purchased their product right there and then. Can you imagine the excitement of ECLIPS, a small Australian company, showing their wares in the UK? What a sight that must have been.

ECLIPS and Guardtech are just two examples of the world-class Aussie ingenuity that we have at home and that is being exported to the UK. Our government's $270 billion commitment to defence capability is buying us much more than just the equipment that our men and women in uniform deserve every day. It's actually buying us credibility abroad, and we will see so many more Australians pitching their equipment and tools to the UK.