Re-shore the Industrial Base
Defence industry GVA is A$11.9B employing 69,400 people across 5,539 companies — but 45% of value added is professional/scientific services, only ~15% manufacturing. A nation that cannot manufacture its own weapons in wartime is strategically dependent in the most dangerous sense. The Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Enterprise (GWEO) represents the first serious attempt to build domestic missile and munitions production. Ghost Shark (autonomous undersea vehicle) and Ghost Bat (loyal wingman drone) are Australian-designed and manufactured. Nuclear power capacity — currently banned under EPBC s.140A and ARPANS 1998 — is essential both for energy sovereignty and for the industrial-scale workforce the AUKUS submarine programme demands.
Progress toward the Programme target — 0 means the transformation hasn't begun, not that capability is zero. Today's position is in the figures below.
Tracked Variables
Manufacturing (% GDP)
Lowest manufacturing share in OECD. Defence industry employs 69,400 across 5,539 companies but only ~15% is actual manufacturing. Long-run deindustrialisation means Australia lacks the industrial base to produce weapons at scale.
Nuclear Power Capacity
Currently banned under EPBC Act s.140A and ARPANS 1998. Olympic Dam holds ~25% of all uranium ever identified — yet civil nuclear is illegal while AUKUS trains ~4,300 nuclear-qualified engineers for sub reactors (incoherent). Programme: 15-20 GW by 2050 (~A$80-90B at Korean APR-1400 build costs), sited at retiring coal plants to reuse existing grid (the "transmission dividend"). CANDU runs on natural uranium = full fuel-cycle sovereignty, no enrichment. Cost objections cite stop-start projects (Vogtle, Flamanville); fleet builds (Korea, France) are cheap.
Recent Intelligence
Initiation of AUKUS submarine construction is a critical milestone that operationalizes Australia's most consequential defence acquisition and validates the trilateral commitment. The transition from design and negotiation into manufacturing directly strengthens Pillar 6 (Maritime Defence) and Pillar 7 (Alliance) by embedding Australian submarine superiority into the Indo-Pacific balance and cementing the US–UK–Australia security architecture.
A fatal MRH-90 Taipan crash and subsequent inquiry dispute signals ongoing reliability and safety issues with a core ADF transport/utility helicopter, directly affecting operational readiness and personnel confidence in the Industrial Base (Pillar 3) and Maritime Defence (Pillar 6). Senate pressure for external review indicates systemic trust erosion in ADF accident investigation processes, which weakens institutional capacity to manage and learn from critical-asset failures during a period when rotorcraft availability is operationally critical.
The ASD director's call for in-country AI training directly advances Pillar 1 (Resource Sovereignty) and Pillar 3 (Industrial Base) by reducing strategic dependence on foreign AI ecosystems and building domestic sovereign capability in critical dual-use technology. This reinforces decoupling from potential adversary control of foundational AI models and training pipelines.
Five years into AUKUS planning, unresolved industrial and workforce constraints across all three nations (Australia, US, UK) signal a systemic delivery risk. For Australia, this directly undermines Pillar 3 (Industrial Base) and Pillar 7 (Alliance credibility), as the submarine transfer—Australia's primary return on the AUKUS commitment—faces sustained production and staffing headwinds.
The article advocates for rapid deployment of commercially-operated military capabilities to address Australia's near-term capability gap amid deteriorating strategic environment, directly supporting the 2024 National Defence Strategy's whole-of-nation approach. This represents a pragmatic acceleration of Australia's industrial base utilization (Pillar 3) and maritime defence posture (Pillar 6) without waiting for major acquisition programs.