Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
Over 400 delegates at the ADM2016 Congress in Canberra this week heard a range of speakers set the tone for the year ahead.
Minister for Defence Senator Marise Payne opened the day, updating the work being done in the fight against Daesh in the Middle East. She also acknowledged that the upcoming White Paper and Defence industry policy statement will be out before the end of the March and will not be documents to ‘gather dust on the shelf’.
"As I'm sure everyone in the room knows, Defence and government don't have all the answers,” Senator Payne said. “We need industry. We need industry to help provide us with the solutions we need to maintain our technological edge. We need industry to help us keep the members of the ADF safe. We need industry to help drive innovation as well as efficiency through our capability development and acquisition process.”
CASG head Kim Gillis echoed her sentiment that industry is a fundamental input to capability and needs to be treated as such. But he also said that they have to act like one as well and the responsibility goes both ways. Gillis was also keen to highlight the work being done in his organisation to live the Smart Buyer approach and bed down the work being implemented based on the First Principles Review.
“F-35 is actually not on my list of concerns anymore and costs are coming down - there are others that worry me more.”
His US counterpart, Department of Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, spoke eloquently about the shared challenges that he and Gillis face as directors of armaments for their respective governments. The evolution of the Better Buying Power program through its various iterations aims to design a program around delivering to warfighters.
“F-35 is actually not on my list of concerns anymore and costs are coming down - there are others that worry me more,” Kendall confirmed.
From the industry side of the house, Raytheon Australia’s Mick Ward, Northrop Grumman’s Ian Irving, DCNS’s Sean Costello and Saab’s Dean Rosenfield were all eloquent about the importance of innovation, fostering partnerships with both Defence and industry partners and being outcome and people focused rather than process driven.
All industry representatives were more interested in providing solution-based perspectives, with recommendations for action based on case studies and experience.
Perspective empathy seemed to be a common theme of the day; for industry it’s to do with understanding what your client needs and wants within a government framework; and for Defence it’s understanding that industry is not out to make their life difficult.
Chief Defence Scientist Dr Alex Zelinsky outlined the changing face of the Defence Science and Technology Group, confirming the Group will maintain their own innovation drive through a range of programs. Dr Zelinsky also confirmed that DST Group is working on a single point of contact under a new online portal that aims to give industry and other stakeholders a better idea of what they do and how they do it.
The uniformed perspective from Chief of the Defence Force Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin, Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell and Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Tim Barrett were able to provide excellent updates about their respective priorities.
ACM Binskin spoke of the mission in the Middle East that is performing well beyond expectation, with some impressive numbers highlighted – the Hornets have flown over 1,200 sorties and a single KC-30 tanker has offloaded over 20 million kilograms of fuel. He also spoke of developing a more “complementary approach to upgrades to capability” in a modern context.
LTGEN Campbell outlined the program of work industry can expect from Army over the coming years, with an obvious focus on Land 400. He pointed out that the commentary surrounding Army is far different to that of the other services.
“We often hear commentary saying that we need the best subs for our sailors, the best jets for out pilots. But where is the commentary about needing the best vehicles for Army?”
Given that Army is often the first on the scene for many ADF responses, and sadly where the loss of personnel is a very real concern given operations in this century alone, this perspective resonated with the audience.
VADM Barrett spoke of how Navy needs to partner with industry to achieve the aims of government in the modern era, and a continuous shipbuilding strategy is a national effort that will operate for the better part of this century to be successful.
“Our modern navy needs to be increasingly a national enterprise, bringing together the private and public sectors of the economy to deliver a fundamental national objective – security above, on and under the sea,” he said.