The 2018 Defence and Industry conference saw representatives from SMEs, primes, CASG, and the military convene in Canberra for a day of presentations from all facets of the Defence community.
Secretary of Defence Greg Moriarty opened the day with a state of the union; an overview of the policy landscape and how the evolution of the past two years is performing.
“My job is to ensure that defence is well positioned in the coming decades in a complex and highly contested world,” Moriarty said explained to the 1,000-plus crowd.
According to Moriarty, that is becoming increasingly difficult as the growing capabilities of Australia’s neighbours pose a challenge to Canberra’s regional military superiority.
“What does maintaining regional superiority mean?” he asked. “This is no longer a comfortable assumption for us. The neighbourhood is making greater investments in defence and security, and this trend is only set to continue.”
This strategic challenge was also a central theme for the three service representatives: Major General Kathryn Toohey, Head Land Capability; Vice Admiral Michael Noonan, Chief of Navy; and Air Vice Marshal Gavin Turnbull, Deputy Chief of Air Force.
“The nature of joint warfare is evolving,” AVM Turnbull said. “The ADF’s future will require a joint force that can provide significant deterrence capability. To do that, RAAF needs to invest in its people.”
Chief Defence Scientist Dr Alex Zelinsky spoke of how Defence is seeking to foster innovative approaches in order to maintain the ADF’s capability edge.
“Technology is moving faster than the Defence procurement cycle,” Dr Zelinsky said. “We’re looking at more of a plug-and-play approach, adopting more open standards. We’re thinking about how to pull that innovation in.”
Industry leaders also weighed in on how to foster innovation in industry and in Defence. A panel discussion from the Centre for Defence Industry Capability saw both SMEs and Primes weigh in on how the Defence innovation ecosystem is functioning.
“Innovation is so much more than technology,” SYPAQ CEO Amanda Holt said. “We wouldn’t be building tech without the mindset we’ve developed in our workforce. It’s a culture that enables conversation. We need to be bold but risk aware; we want to be Apple and not Kodak.”
“Innovation is about new ways of doing things. It doesn’t come from a superstar member of your team, but from your whole team,” Chris Williams of H.I Fraser said.
Another key theme of the day was centred around relationships and culture, both internal to Defence, Primes and SMEs but also how those three entities interact. A panel of some of the biggest primes in the land (BAE Systems, Boeing and Thales) along SMEs in the form of EM Solutions, Daronmont and Tectonica was a particular highlight covering issues from commercialisation paths and IP to diversity and gender balance.
“We recognise that some interactions are transactional and some are about building a long term relationships,” Darren Edwards, head of Boeing Defence Australia said. “We need to act accordingly from the start.”
Head of Thales Chris Jenkins was blunt in his assessment of how the defence community is performing in terms of gender diversity and indigenous representation – “we have massive work to do.”
Perhaps one of the more surprising insights came from Daronmont’s Lee Stanley who said that ‘it is now easier to contract directly with Defence rather than the primes’ when reflecting on how the relationship between the different sectors performs in practice.
This news was met with jubilation from outgoing Deputy Secretary of the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group Kim Gillis – “it only took 20 years but here we are!” He also hopes that true gender diversity, which is one way to get diversity of thought in an organisation, doesn’t take quite as long.