Address to 2025 Indo Pacific Conference Breakfast

I do get the last word but it's always a challenge to say something novel as the fourth speaker. I won't repeat all the acknowledgements, I think the DPM did a sterling job of that, but I would be remiss not to acknowledge my New Zealand counterpart, Chris, and great to see you here today. And Chief of Navy, you'll be glad to know that I gifted him an outrageous Australian Navy hat with the South Sydney Rabbitohs symbol on it, but I was only too glad to get it out of my office. 

Good to see you too, Minister Papalia, great to see such a sterling ambassador for the second Garden Island, and the rest of WA here today. I'm saying this because I've got the microphone and he doesn't, which is a rare occasion. 

You've already had a superb scene setting about the strategic challenge provided by the deputy prime minister so I'm just going to spend a couple of minutes laying down a challenge to both the industry and defence personnel in the room and talking about the challenge that the Albanese Government is embracing, and how do we respond to the strategic circumstances that we face, how do we mobilise a whole of national effort to give our war fighters the best possible assets to preserve peace in our region and deter conflict. 

It starts with the budget. It doesn't end with the budget, but a US President once said, "Show me your budget and I’ll show you your priorities", and that's why we're investing $159 billion over the next decade in our maritime capabilities. That's why we're more than doubling the surface fleet accompanying the investment in AUKUS. 

And I just want to reflect on a few projects and talk about how we're doing things differently because the strategic circumstances demand that. The DPM talked about our effort to acquire the modified Mogami frigates and I acknowledge the chief of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force here. This will be the fastest acquisition of a major defence platform in the history of Australia in peacetime. 

I just want to run you through the speed of this. The decision by government in early 2024, down select from five to two by the end of 2024. We then made a decision to go with the Mogami frigate five months ahead of schedule in the middle of this year. So even fast but moving faster as possible. We will deliver ‑ the first vessel will be delivered by 2029 and in service by 2030, five years after the first concept of this project being established, and we'll have five ‑ and it will be delivered five years earlier than the previous Government's plans for the next major service combatant. And by 2035, instead of having one new warship, we'll have four new warships. 

This is the speed that we all need to embrace in this area, and it requires bravery. It requires government to make decisions like acquiring the first three from the existing production line in Japan before shifting production to Australia. It requires bravery by the Royal Australian Navy to embrace no changes. And that's a challenge for all of us but I know the Chief of Navy, from the Chief of Navy down, they are embracing the concept of no changes, because that's how you get the best capability as fast as possible. 

So, the Mogami is one example of where we're trying to shake things up and change our approach. The other one that the Chief of Navy and I were highlighting last Friday is our investment in autonomous vehicles, particularly underwater autonomous vehicles.

We were opening the Anduril Ghost Shark factory very close to where we are now. This is another poster child for speed and capability. The decision by Navy, by Defence Science and Technology Group, to co‑invest with Anduril in the middle of 2022 to acquire three prototypes in three years. They were delivered on budget and one year ahead of schedule, one year ahead of schedule. And we were so delighted by the capability and saw the potential there that we immediately went into negotiations to do full-rate production of those. 

So, factory-built, first production-level Ghost Shark will be delivered to the Royal Australian Navy in January 2026, three and a half years after the first decision to invest in R&D around this capability. Again, all about speed and capability, giving us an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle that can perform under very long ranges, importantly providing ISR as well as striking very far away from Australian shores. And as I said on Friday, very deployable, very transportable, which means that it can be launched from anywhere in Australia where you see a wharf and a shipping container, which is obviously a very important deterrence signal to potential adversaries. 

AUKUS, I'm sure everyone's au fait with AUKUS, but this is the single largest national endeavour Australia will ever undertake, giving the Royal Australian Navy the best underwater capability possible, delivering 20,000 jobs for Australians, accompanied by a $30 billion investment in the local industry capability. 

And it's not just about us taking technology and taking the work that has been done in the United States and United Kingdom, it's adding to the alliances, adding our industrial know‑how, recognising that the sum of the parts is greater than the individual components. And to give you two examples. Today I'll be announcing with the Chief of Navy a contract for PMB to supply factories not just to our AUKUS submarines but also to the UK AUKUS submarines, building on the work they are already doing with the current UK submarine programs. One example of Australian know‑how contributing to our allies. 

Another one I saw in the United States recently was a great additive manufacturer called AML3D, one of the world leaders of additive manufacturing. They're now in contract to supply parts to the US Columbia program, their key strategic deterrence program. 

Through their advanced technologies, they're able to make parts that previously would have taken two and a half years to manufacture in just 16 weeks. Just 16 weeks, ladies and gentlemen. That's another example of us working in partnership with the US to make both countries safer. 

We're also advancing our investment in strike to give the Navy, as well as the broader ABF, the strongest range, the most advanced strike weapons to deter conflict. 

We've brought forward the acquisition of Naval Strike Missile, Tomahawk, SM‑6. We've given a tenfold increase in the strike range of the Navy, and we're investing in manufacturing in this country through the GWEO initiative so that we have supply chain resilience, greater sovereignty and contributing to the alliance. 

So, the Kongsberg factory, producing Naval Strike and Joint Strike Missiles, only the second factory in the world doing this and the first outside Norway, will be open in 2027, producing not just for our ADF but hopefully for allies and partners. So, this is an industrial mobilisation of epic levels. 

And as the DPM said, it's all underpinned by our commitment to continuous Naval shipbuilding. We've all lived through, and not just in Australia, the boom-bust cycle of shipbuilding, which kills the industry, slows up capability, makes it more expensive. At the end of the build of the Anzac‑class frigates, we were building Anzac‑class frigates faster and cheaper than our friends in Germany could have with the MEKO class frigate they were based on. Why were we able to do that? Because we had scale and certainty of demand, and we're intent on replicating that through our commitment to continuous naval shipbuilding in South Australia, doing major surface vessels and submarines, and in WA producing patrol boats, frigates and landing craft. 

That requires huge political commitment, because the initial investment is always more expensive than trying to find something off an existing production line. But it's about a long‑term investment in our defence industrial base, recognising that not only does that provide more supply chain resilience and sovereignty for our ADF, it broadens the economic base of those states and it ultimately gives greater optionality for our ADF. 

And I want to acknowledge the close cooperation we've had with a range of state governments in this endeavour, particularly in continuous naval shipbuilding for the WA Government and the South Australian Government. But this is a huge effort that requires bravery from government and cooperation from our partner defence, to recognise short‑term pain leads long‑term gain, and we're well and truly committed to that. 

So sorry for the sort of rapid run-through of what we're doing but I just wanted to give people a flavour of where we're going, and to end with this message: Our strategic circumstances dictate national mobilisation. Our strategic circumstances dictate that Defence does things differently, that Defence reforms itself, but also that industry moves faster. As industry moves faster, it embraces more risk, it moves from a sell-then-build to a build-then-sell model, and that requires true strategic partnerships. 

The Albanese Government's up to the challenge. I know industry's up to the challenge. I know the Defence Department and the ADF are up to the challenge. So, I thank you for your time here. I wish you the best of luck over the next three days. Here’s to producing deterrence, protecting the Indo‑Pacific and making a safer place for all of us to live. Thank you very much.