The Hon. Jason Clare MP
Minister for Defence Materiel.
Treasurer, Eric Roozendaal
Thanks for the invitation to be here tonight. It’s very exciting to be here in this new role.
There’s no more important job than defence. I’ll be reminded of that tomorrow.
I’m jumping on a plane in an hour to Darwin to meet members of the 5-RAR. They’re about to be deployed to Afghanistan. I’m also going to inspect the equipment they’ll use while they’re in theatre.
They’re off to do a dangerous and important job. It’s our job to make sure they have the equipment they need.
I’m sure the gravity of this responsibility is not lost on anyone in this room. It’s why we do the job we do.
It’s a big portfolio. The Federal Government invests $11.5 billion a year on defence materiel – equivalent to about 1% of GDP. And a lot of that is spent here, employing 29,000 Australians.
It’s also a very competitive industry – not just between the companies – but between the States. NSW is up against South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia all competing for defence contracts.
Eric has set NSW a target of winning 30 per cent of our in country spend by 2019. It’s an ambitious target. And that’s why this initiative is so important.
We have a busy time ahead. An updated 10 year Defence Capability Plan will soon be released. The DMO has about $110 billion of work under management over the decade.
Annual expenditure on defence acquisition and sustainment in Australia will increase in real terms from about $5.5 billion to about $7.5 billion over the next 10 years.
This means there’ll be a lot of work.
And I look forward to working with you all to deliver our defence force the equipment it needs over the coming years.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you all tonight.
Media Contacts:
Korena Flanagan (Office of Jason Clare) – (02) 6277 7620
