No time to go it alone on capability, says DEPSEC

The Defence Trade Controls (DTC) Amendment Bill 2023 before Parliament will streamline trade with the United Kingdom and United States and is critical to Australia’s ability to more closely integrate its defence industrial base with partners, Defence’s Deputy Secretary Strategy, Policy, and Industry, Hugh Jeffrey, has told an international conference.

In a keynote address to the Center for Security and International Studies’ Strengthening Australia – US Defense Industrial Collaboration conference in Canberra on March 6, Mr Jeffrey said Australia must strengthen its industrial base cooperation with its partners if it is to effectively respond to a deteriorating strategic environment.

That environment has caused severe, “disruption of Defence planning assumptions,” he said. This is compounded by the fact “we strategically de-mobilised,” after the cold war, Mr Jeffrey added. “Strategic competition has returned with a vengeance.”

“In a much more contested world, it is our ability to work across sovereign boundaries and pool our resources that gives us a genuine competitive edge” he said, adding that partnerships such as AUKUS and the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance enterprise should become the norm, not the exception.

“A run-faster strategy won’t avail us if we just try to go it alone in our national industry sovereign defence chains.

“We have to adapt our respective export control and protective security regimes so that we can take advantage of the innovative and productive capacities of our partners.”

‘A run-faster strategy won’t avail us if we just try to go it alone.’

Mr Jeffrey emphasised the DTC Bill will include exemptions to streamline trade between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom by removing key barriers to the export of military technology, and reduce compliance burdens on industry, higher-education and research sectors.

“That’s where implementation design has become incredibly important,” he said. “Think scalpel, not sledgehammer.

“As our principal trade partners, national exemptions in the US and UK would mean almost a third of export applications are no longer required. This in turn is expected to generate a net benefit to the Australian economy of over $600 million over a 10-year period.

“We’ve been designing this bill in consultation with key stakeholders in industry and the university and research sectors. And I’m pleased to say that many have said they support the intent of the bill and the approach we are adopting, which is to strike a balance between facilitating increased international collaboration and national security requirements.”

View the full keynote address