An Australian Arms Industry ?

The closure of the last car manufacturing plant in Australia dealt a damaging blow to the production industry that supplied a wide variety of parts that applied to automobile manufacturing..  It is now suggested that this expertise be redirected and we should seek a toe hold in the giant arms export industry.

As things stand, our armed forces are a customer of this world industry when it comes to big ticket items.  Our fighter jets are designed and produced in the United States and we recently called tenders for a new fleet of conventional submarines. It is not suggested that we try to compete in this sophisticated field of design and technology advancement which absorbs multi billion research budgets annually.

We do have a nascent arms industry that is a supplier to the Australian defence forces but production runs are meagre and an expansion would deliver badly needed jobs and technical advances.  It is suggested that this expansion be supported with a $3.8 billion injection of taxpayers funds in the way of seed money.

Supporters of this plan point to our success with the Bushmaster armoured patrol vehicle.  This Australian built troop carrier has proven simply better than competing vehicles from other countries and it has found a ready market amongst our allies, including Japan.   We  need to be selective in directing research to where improvements are possible without the enormous cost of bringing new technology to market.

Entry into the world arms bazaar would also need to go hand in hand with an expanded consular engagement with other countries.  At present, the world arms trade is heavily influenced by the United States, Russia, Britain and France. By its very nature, much of the arms trade is influenced by treaties and embargoes imposed by these giants in trade deals.

Just as Australian industry learned to compete successfully with car parts that met the standards, quality and price demanded by the world car manufacturers and gained input into cars made here for export to world markets, there is no reason that these same manufacturers can not turn their skills towards the world arms trade.

What is important is to select production targets that are attainable and not blocked off by technology secrets that will not be available to us. It would be helpful if Australia developed an integrated and specialised sales organization to develop the contacts and skill to present Australian arms products to this world market, reducing the cost to individual manufacturers.

This is a plan that has great potential, but it also has risks.  Once of those risks is the failure to recognise limitations.  If we are careful in selecting avenues of production that are open to us we can readily duplicate things like that Bushmaster success !