Doorstop Interview, Indo Pacific 2025

SUBJECTS: IndoPac-25; PMB-BAE AUKUS battery contract; defence exports; quantum navigation

MARK HAMMOND: Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to IndoPac‑25, it is true that the capability of the Australian Defence Force stands on the shoulders of the Australian defence industry, and the next few days is an opportunity for us to understand and explore the full range of capabilities available to the Australian Defence Force particularly in my lane for the Royal Australian Navy. 

This is the largest conference that we have hosted. We've had 13 previous CPower conferences here in Sydney, this is by far the largest with more than 900 exhibitors and 58 international delegations and about 35 of my colleagues from around the world. 

I'm particularly looking forward to the CPower Conference as well where we get to explore contemporary strategic issues that have a maritime context; everything from our saltwater diplomacy program to our deterrence program and ultimately our defence of Australia capabilities. 

It's indeed an honour and a privilege to be doing this here in Sydney in the best and the most beautiful, natural harbour in the world. 

A lot of people don't know, but we've had a continuous naval presence here in Sydney for 204 years since 1821, it has been the home of the Royal Australian Navy, and since the Commonwealth Naval Force was established in 1901, where the title "royal" was confirmed on the Australian Navy in 1911 and the First Fleet units sailed into Sydney Harbour in 1913, and that's when the Royal Australian Navy took responsibility for the defence of the Commonwealth of Australia. 

So, to be holding this really important conference here in Sydney is an absolute privilege. And finally, I'd like to highlight that we are running a Navy Life Expo which is an opportunity to showcase our people, our incredible sailors and officers to the youth of Australia where more than 800 young Australians will be visiting the Navy Life Expo, they'll be visiting Garden Island and learning about career opportunities in the Royal Australian Navy. 

Without further ado, I'll hand over to Minister Conroy. 

MINISTER FOR DEFENCE INDUSTRY, PAT CONROY: Thanks, Chief, and I'd like also to welcome the opening of IndoPaC. 

Ladies and gentlemen, AUKUS, in the words of President Trump is "proceeding at full steam ahead", and today's announcement is another example of that work. AUKUS is about expanding industrial cooperation between the three countries to deepen that work, to generate another shipyard able to produce nuclear powered conventionally armed submarines to support the Royal Australian Navy in its efforts to make Australia safer by promoting deterrence in our region. 

And through this national endeavour, which is the greatest industrial undertaking we've ever attempted in this country, we will drive 20,000 secure well‑paid, highly‑skilled jobs, and today's announcement goes to that. 

Today I'm announcing that PMB, a great innovative Australian company based in Adelaide will be supplying batteries to the AUKUS submarines, not just Australia's AUKUS submarines, but the submarines to be manufactured for the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. 

This will add to the work that we're already doing for the UK through the Astute and Dreadnought‑class programs, it will add to the 450 jobs that have already been generated through ASC and BAE working on AUKUS. 

So this is about more jobs for Australians, more capability into the Royal Australian Navy as well as supporting our allies, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

So, this is a great day for Aussie industry, it's a great day for the Royal Australian Navy, and it's about export earnings, more jobs, more safety and security for the Australian people. 

I'll hand over to Mike from PMB to say a bit more about the announcement. 

MIKE HARTAS, PMB Defence: Thank you, Minister. PMB is very proud to announce our contract today. We've worked very hard over the last 10 years to secure our spot as an exporter of submarine batteries globally. This work will go a long way to continuing our work in designing the future battery for our AUKUS submarine. We're very proud to support the Australian sailors and the UK sailors who will use our battery should the need arise. Thank you very much. 

CRAIG LOCKHART, BAE SYSTEMS AUSTRALIA: Thanks Mike, on behalf of BAE Systems. I'm also proud to have Mike and the team not only extend what we're doing on the Dreadnought and the ship programs into SSN‑AUKUS, but also today signifies the first probably qualification process for any Australian company going through into delivering contracts and information that supports SSN‑AUKUS. 

Mike and the team are developing now innovative technologies, nickel-zinc batteries which will allow us to start that design information and really start to kind of challenge the way we think about designing the whole platform as we come. 

So today, Mike, well done to the team for sticking with it. Not only does it signify, you know, 350 jobs and new opportunities, but a new design and advancement in technology that will end up in both platforms in the UK and Australia. 

MINISTER CONROY: Thank you. We'll take questions about today's announcement first, and then if anyone wants to be a bit braver, that's fine. Anything about today's announcement? 

JOURNALIST: Well, what's it worth? 

MINISTER CONROY: So this is part of a broader $34 million contract that PMB have with BAE to supply for Astute and Dreadnought, but this is the first stage of a broader contract that will occur once the technology's proved up for SSN‑AUKUS, so you can expect a more than doubling of that $34 million contract. 

Anything else about today's announcement? No? 

JOURNALIST: Generally, about the conference itself, minister. I mean the chief just told us that this is the biggest ever. What does that tell us about the state of the geopolitical situation in the world at the moment, and particularly in our region; why has Australia got to host something of this size, of this importance and attract so many defence experts to this event? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, it reflects two factors; one, the strategic circumstances that we're under, we are facing more strategic uncertainty since 1945, and that poses huge challenges for our region. The rules-based order is being challenged. 

Secondly, it points to the strength of the Australian defence industry. We have over 100,000 Australians who work in the Australian defence industry, who support the Australian Defence Force and make it safer each day and promote peace in our region. 

And our industry is mobilising at a rapid scale to do that, whether it's BAE with their projects, including working to deliver the Hunter‑class frigate, whether it's Anduril Australia that is producing the Ghost Shark at rapid, record speed. This is all about jobs for Australians to make Australia safer. 

JOURNALIST: Should Australia be doing business with Israeli defence companies? 

MINISTER CONROY: In which particular context, Matt? 

JOURNALIST: Like the ones here on display. 

MINISTER CONROY: Yeah. So, I might say ‑ yeah, I think it's probably best for everyone to exit, given that's essentially a political question. 

A couple of facts: first, we haven't supplied weapons or ammunition to Israel for at least the last five years, and especially since the conflict with Gaza began. 

In terms of them supplying the ADF, we make no apology for getting the best possible equipment for the Australian Defence Force. We make no apology for making sure that our soldiers, sailors and aviators have the best equipment to protect Australia's interests, promote deterrence in our region, and that includes sourcing parts from companies throughout the world. 

JOURNALIST: Has Australia ever provided innocuous parts that then go on to be used in weaponry to the Israeli Government? 

MINISTER CONROY: Ah, let's be very clear. We haven't supplied ammunition or weapons to Israel over the last five years. Everything goes through a strict export licensing regime. The only export licences that are being approved right now is for ADF equipment that is going to Israel for either repair or upgrade or manufacture to come to back to Australia. 

JOURNALIST: On that, Minister, some local companies reportedly received letters from Defence Export Controls advising them of new restrictions on approved goods being sent to Israel from today. What's caused this ‑ prompted this clamp‑down, if you like? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, I've articulated the principles that we've applied, and let me repeat them; first ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: But is this the Albanese Government finally conceding that it's not going ‑ it's going to clamp down on sending these munition, or this ‑ defence parts to Israel? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, we don't send munitions to Israel. That's a really important thing to state. 

JOURNALIST: And that's why I said, "defence parts". 

MINISTER CONROY: Yes, yes. What we are doing is implementing the decision we made, which is that we've only approved export licences for ADF equipment to be maintained, upgraded or manufactured, and our policy continues to be that. 

JOURNALIST: What do you say to the ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: What's your message to the protestors out the front? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, we live in a vibrant democracy, and everyone has the right to protest as long as they're peaceful. But what I'm calling for is respect for the ADF and respect for the 100,000 Australians who work in the Australian defence industry. 

These people get up each day and produce equipment and parts to support the ADF to contribute to our sovereignty and self‑reliance and to make Australia safer. So people have a right to protest, but they should respect the fact that Australians are getting up, helping make Australia safer while putting food on their families' table. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, you spoke about the need for a speed to capability. Does the defence department need to be reorganised, overhauled for that to happen; is the government going to do that? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, the DPM and I have been very clear that we're engaging or undertaking further reform for defence. We have been very clear that we need to move faster. We've made very significant changes to defence. 

I stood up with the DPM in October 22 and made very significant changes to defence procurement, particularly around the projects concern process and getting more accountability there, but we are already moving faster than any government previously. 

In my remarks to the conference opening, I talked about the Mogami‑class acquisition, which is part of us more than doubling our surface fleet. Instead of the previous government's plan of one warship in the next 10 years, we are going to be having four ships in the next ‑ by 2034 and we've brought forward the delivery of the first by five years. 

So we're moving at speed on Ghost Shark, we moved from an idea on paper in 2022 to opening a factory with the first production variant being delivered to the Royal Australian Navy in January next year. So we're moving at pace but we need to move faster, and that's why the DPM and I are committed to further reform to defence. 

JOURNALIST: On that point you spoke about the speed of the acquisition of Mogami frigate, excuse me, and that requiring bravery. Are you seeing that same bravery within the US and the UK systems when it comes to perhaps speeding up the delivery of SSN‑AUKUS especially given the deteriorating strategic circumstances? 

MINISTER CONROY: Well, your question should really be directed to the UK and US Government. What I can say having returned from Washington only three weeks ago is that there's a real commitment to speeding up their defence systems, and bringing in new vendors, not relying on the same old suppliers, and a real focus on increasing speed in their system as well. 

So I think across the whole democratic world, particularly the US and UK and Australia, there's a commitment to moving faster, learning the lessons from Ukraine, and that's what we're doing right now, putting those lessons into action. 

SPEAKER: One ‑ guys, one more question for the Minister, and then we'll give you an opportunity to ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: I want to ask the Chief a question, if that's okay. 

SPEAKER: Yes, yes. 

JOURNALIST: The question is ‑‑ 

JOURNALIST: I'd like to ask the Minister a question. 

SPEAKER: Just one more question for the Minister, and then we'll leave [indistinct] ask a couple of questions. 

JOURNALIST: [Indistinct] so I mean Russia has been ‑ the GPS jamming and spoofing's been a problem in Ukraine, you just mentioned Ukraine, China's looking at the same things; I'm just wondering from the Navy's perspective and from your perspective, is that a big problem for the Navy and, you know, do you think some of these quantum navigation devices you guys are testing is a possible solution to that issue? 

MINISTER CONROY: I'll let chief answer first, and then I might add. 

MARK HAMMOND: Yeah, the road of technological change is significant, and it's accelerating in almost every domain, which again underscores the importance of this conference today and the opportunity for us to understand what the industry's latest offers are. 

Precision navigation underpins the safety of our platforms at sea just in peacetime alone, but when you get into conflict, it underpins the accuracy of our missile systems, et cetera. 

So it's something we are completely focused on. There is a classified element to this which I won't go into, but suffice to say in answer to your question, it is something that we are alert to, it is something we are focused on and assurance of precision navigation is absolutely something we will be delivering on in the coming years. 

MINISTER CONROY: And if I can just add to that, we are seeing huge industrial opportunities from learning the lessons from Ukraine and quantum navigation is one example of that. 

We've produced some of the most ‑ well, I do think we produce the most advanced autonomous underwater vehicle in the world as part of a range of underwater autonomous vehicles, and advanced navigation is a critical part of that on for both vessels in a GPS‑constrained environment, but also underwater vessels that don't ‑ aren't easily able to communicate with satellites and other things. 

So there's huge opportunities there. I'm visiting a stand today and announcing a new project along those lines, because there's huge opportunities there for Aussie industry, which means more jobs for Australians. Thank you very much everyone.