Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the committee's report entitled Inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2019-20.

Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e).

by leave—As the chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade resides in the other place and the chair of the Defence Subcommittee has ascended to the chair of this place, the duty falls to me as deputy chair of the main committee and the subcommittee for defence to present this report, entitled Inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2019-20.

On 17 March 2020, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade resolved to have the Defence Subcommittee inquire into and report on the Department of Defence annual report 2019-20. The inquiry initially focused on four main aspects of the annual report, namely: space based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; cyberwarfare; defence estate in the north and north-west of Australia; and defence workforce. Throughout the conduct of the inquiry, defence science and technology and strategic fuel security became additional focus areas.

The global geostrategic environment is changing at a rate and on a scale much greater than was anticipated towards the end of the last decade. Military modernisation in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in grey zone capabilities and tactics, has added a layer of complexity to Australia's strategic challenges, which must be met in an equally high-paced and agile manner if we are to maintain a credible defensive deterrent. Never has it been more apparent that future threats to our national interests and those of our allies and partners could come in various unconventional forms. These include information warfare, political warfare, cyberattack, space and antispace capabilities, economic coercion, disaster and climate change diplomacy, and other forms of influence and coercion that fall below the threshold of conventional military responses.

While initial focus areas of this inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2019-20were relatively narrow, what the committee subsequently learned was significantly broader. The committee sees the clear potential advantages of taking an increasingly asymmetric approach to national security in coming decades, not only within the Defence organisation but from a broader whole-of-nation perspective. This extends beyond strictly military capabilities to shared civil military space capabilities, joint civil military cybercapabilities and innovative approaches to future fuel and energy security measures.

As a sovereign nation, Australia has many defence related choices over the coming decade. We can continue to focus on defence philosophy, primarily on conventional military responses whilst developing asymmetric and grey zone capabilities as adjunct or niche considerations, or we can more actively embrace asymmetric and grey zone capabilities as equals to our outstanding, indispensable, yet relatively small conventional military forces. We must also begin to think unconventionally about energy security, as Australia's strategic focus has shifted from the Northern Hemisphere to regions closer to home.

Our traditional assumptions about logistics chains that provide for our peacetime fuel needs in our region must also be challenged and, if necessary, our national approach altered to ensure we have access to fuels and potentially alternative fuels in times of crisis. Alternatively, Australia, as a medium power with a burgeoning science, technology, engineering and mathematics sector and a long history of technical and military innovation, is superbly positioned to become a world leader in unconventional, asymmetric and innovative approaches to many aspects of our national power, including defence and energy security.

I believe the time is right for Australia to play to its strengths. Despite our relatively small population and modest economy compared to the major powers in our region, our Defence Organisation has the opportunity to become an increasingly potent adversary, an agile adversary which would pose a very difficult strategic calculus for any potential future threats.

This report makes six recommendations. These relate to the increasing size of the Australian Defence Force, improving Australia's grey-zone capabilities and improving national fuel security. These recommendations seek to alter Australia's national strategy to make us more resilient, agile and capable, particularly as a sovereign nation in the age of grey-zone tactics and warfare information.

On behalf of the Defence Subcommittee, I express my sincere thanks to the many representatives of the ADF who have performed so incredibly, particularly in the last two years, where they have stepped out of more military based roles into assisting our communities with COVID. I also want to thank other government agencies, industry and academia, who really made extraordinary contributions to this inquiry. The Defence Subcommittee was enlightened by much of the evidence submitted and was very encouraged by the highly professional and dedicated people from all sectors who contributed, who take our national security very seriously and take the stability and peace of our region equally seriously. I would also like to thank the secretariat, ably led by Julia Morris, and also I would like to thank Wing Commander Steven Ferguson, our Defence adviser, who has had the difficulty of a pandemic added to that of an already complex and busy committee. I commend the report to the House.