Beazley – We Need to Prevent Australia Being Lost
Michael Sharpe
Chief Executive Officer - AUKUS Forum - National Security; Infrastructure; Nuclear Industry; Engineering; Family Office; Agtech; Transport; Agriculture
It was terrific to attend the inaugural Advancing AUKUS event in Canberra and good to talk with the former Defence Minister Kim Beazley AC, who also served for six years as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States.
When talking at the podium, he didn’t mince words. As the ABC reported - Kim Beazley calls for massive defence spending increase to?prevent Australia being 'lost'
This week?The Age quoted Beazley as frightened. “Quite frightened,” - The Americans are no longer talking about US pre-eminence to our ministers, he says. Instead, they talk a lot about allies and leveraging their allies. And it is “very important for [Australia] to remember that as we go about calculating and defending ourselves”.
A whole of nation effort will be needed to defend ourselves. The AUKUS Partnership started with nuclear powered submarines, it is already expanding into cybersecurity and more. This past month we have had the announcement of B-52 bombers in the Northern Territory to add to the 2500 US Marines based in Darwin.
Lest we forget that during World War 2 we had the Bombing of Darwin; submarine attacks and civilian deaths along the NSW coastline, including the?Attack of the Dureenbee; and talk of conceding Northern Australia in the event of invasion at the Brisbane Line.
In the near future the Australian Government will announce the East Coast Base for the nuclear submarine fleet, presumed to be at Newcastle or the Illawarra. There is?significant investment to Defence sites?across Northern Australia and much more infrastructure will be needed.?
Redarc Electronics is successfully?growing into Defence and Space;?Hypersonix Launch Systems?is planning new technologies with the University of Sydney and Thales is?upgrading the Small Arms Factory?at Lithgow. The?Facility for Intelligent Fabrication?at the University of Wollongong continues to engage with industry with their world leading robotics welding technologies and more. We’re going to need a lot more welders!
Covid has proved that Australian manufacturing has the capabilities to be resilient. But there is always a test, and right now it’s all about the global energy crisis and the nationwide skills shortage.?
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When it comes to energy, the situation that Australia finds itself in seems absurd. The fact that we are blessed with more natural resources than most other countries on earth and yet, we need diesel. Surely we need to build Australia’s refining capabilities and we certainly need more fuel storage. Australia currently has less than 20 days of diesel in reserve and I’ve heard it said that “we are yet to see a solar powered armoured tank that is effective”.
We will certainly need to build a skills uplift. The?Nuclear Skills Forum?was created prior to AUKUS and has accelerated since the “Forever Partnership” was announced. A wide range of industry and academia have met on a regular basis to explore opportunities. To build up into this whole new world, we will need thousands of new engineers and trades people.?According to Weld Australia, we will need 70,000 new welders by 2030 just to power up the renewable energy shift.
The Defence Minister, Richard Marles, told parliament last week that the Albanese government was on track to make an announcement early next year about the nuclear submarines, which he said would be one of the country’s “great national endeavours”.
As News quoted Marles??“There is a power of work under way right now with our partners in the United Kingdom and the United States about what will be the optimal pathway for Australia’s future nuclear powered submarines,”
“We are on track to be able to make that announcement in the first part of next year. And building a nuclear submarine in this country will be one of Australia’s great national endeavours.”
This adds to the Defence Minister’s comments just a few weeks ago that “Australia must turn itself into a “porcupine” island?fortified with enough lethal weaponry to deter an attack from a hostile rival”
The fact that Australian leaders are openly talking about the possibility for Australia to be lost means that we have no time to spare in further accelerating Australia’s industrial potential and skills uplift. The AUKUS Partnership itself is an innovation, the opportunity is for a stronger more resilient nation for generations to come.
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Executive Chairman | Barrie Harrop
2 年Actually, we need to replace toxic, polluting diesel with Green Hydrogen asap.
Well said!
Senior Features Writer at Prime Creative Media
2 年It was ridiculous to have so much of our diesel reserves located on the EAST coast of the US, when there was a sizable storage facility being demolished at Kurnell.
Retired Business Manager | Possessing a strong environmental & community purpose | Interests: Technology, Nuclear Energy, Photography and Sailing
2 年Great piece and we definitely do need to get manufacturing back into this country. I recently left a company that has developed and manufactures world-leading products for the construction industry, outshining companies like Beyer and BASF which import competitor products from China. The company is an SME, with two factories, one on the NSW Mid-North Coast and the other in Brisbane. They wanted to ensure everything used was Aussie made, the issue it has is the production equipment cannot be manufactured here at the price that China could supply it. Australia certainly has the engineering capability and the quality control to be competitive, but, when you are competing with a country that basically has no labour laws or minimum wage guarantees then as a manufacturer you have to go down the Chinese path, otherwise you would not be competitive. At least the IP stays here and they know the Chinese could not match the process that the company has patented.