AUSTRALIAN+NEW ZEALAND DEFENCE DIRECTORY 2025 www.defence.directory 29 MINISTERIAL FOREWORD steel, pipes, cable and ships’ furniture for the first three Hunter Class Frigates. It’s an important signal of the vital importance of Australian industry involvement in this program across all its elements, which is essential to the development of our naval shipbuilding industrial base. Likewise, as the Government continues to make tangible progress on implementing the AUKUS trilateral security partnership. Australian industry involvement in the construction, maintenance and sustainment of our conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability is developing at pace. The Australian Submarine Agency’s Industry Portal is open for businesses from every state and territory to register their interest. A huge body of work is underway with our AUKUS partners to develop vendor and product qualification processes to enable Australian industry to participate in US and UK industrial bases. This work is essential to our effort to enhance the resilience of trilateral supply chains. By pinpointing our partners’ long lead-time procurement requirements and developing supplierqualification processes, we can effectively support Australian businesses to integrate into the UK and US supply chains. Already, we have seen Australian steel manufacturer Bisalloy join the supply chain of Newport News Shipbuilding and secure an initial purchase order. This success represents the outcomes we are pursuing as we work with our partners to achieve a seamless defence industrial base. Meanwhile, under Pillar II of AUKUS we are seeing collaboration between innovators from Australia, the UK and the US that is driving the delivery of advanced capabilities for the benefit of all three nations. The first in a series of AUKUS Innovation Challenges, focusing on electronic warfare, has been launched through the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator to showcase innovative solutions from industry and research organisations. The Government recognises the importance of defence exports for Australia and for the resilience of the sovereign defence industrial base. Exports are important for industry because they provide diversity in revenue sources and they are important for Government because they increase industrial capability and capacity to support Defence. In early 2024, Australia entered into the largest defence export agreement in our nation’s history with the signing of a contract for the production of armoured vehicles for the German Army. Over 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles will be built at Rheinmetall Defence Australia’s Military Vehicle Centre of Excellence in Queensland, with the first Australian built vehicle to be delivered in 2026. This historic contract secures 600 direct jobs and is worth more than $1 billion to Australia’s economy. Government-to-government sales like this one as well as direct commercial sales will continue to be important, but we are also focused on developing further opportunities to integrate Australian companies into global supply chains. Fulfilling the commitment we made in the DIDS, we have significantly expanded the Global Supply Chain program, almost doubling the number of participating prime contractors from seven to 13. This includes expansion of the performance framework to keep the program accountable, its results measurable, and its functions laser-focused on enabling the growth of Australian defence businesses. This is a time of immense opportunity for Australia’s defence industrial base. From the great nation-building projects like AUKUS and the national naval shipbuilding enterprise, to the establishment of domestic manufacture of guided weapons, explosive ordnance and munitions, to the development of cutting-edge technologies and systems, there are opportunities across Defence that will require the support of Australian industry to ensure they succeed. Australia’s defence industry is an essential partner in keeping Australians safe at home, secure in the world and employed in wellpaid, high-skilled jobs. Within the pages of the Australian + New Zealand Defence Directory, the listings reflect the dynamism and depth of expertise to be found across our defence industrial base. It gives me great pleasure to show my ongoing support for the Directory and the remarkable Australian defence industry capabilities that it highlights. THE HON PAT CONROY MP Minister For Defence Industry & Capability Delivery Minister for International Development & the Pacific
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