Australia Rewires Its Defence Industry From the Ground Up
A new strategy adds $55M for SMEs, relaunches a $2B export fund, and creates an independent delivery agency to fix chronic project overruns.
By The Defense Desk
Australia has released the Defence Industry Development Strategy (DIDS), its third major defence policy document of the year, setting out how Canberra plans to build a sovereign industrial base capable of manufacturing and sustaining its own military platforms. [1]
The most immediate injection is an additional A$80 million (US$55.4 million) directed to small- and medium-sized defence businesses through 2030 via the Defence Industry Development Grants Program, lifting total program investment to A$250 million (US$173.5 million). [1]
Australia's A$3 billion (US$2.06 billion) defence export fund — described by the department as "underutilised" since its establishment in 2018 — is being reformed and relaunched to provide "more flexible and timely support" for industry securing overseas contracts. [1] The Australian-built Anduril Ghost Shark, an extra large autonomous underwater vehicle, has been named a priority export capability under the strategy. [1]
The DIDS also establishes a Defence Delivery Group, charged with providing "independent, evidence-based advice to Government" on project delivery. [1] Within a year it is slated to become the Defence Delivery Agency, consolidating three existing acquisition and sustainment bodies to address what the government acknowledges are "longstanding systemic challenges" behind projects delivered late, over budget, and below expectations. [1]
The strategy arrives at a moment when self-sufficiency is no longer a policy aspiration but a strategic requirement — and when the distance between ambition and institutional machinery is being reckoned with honestly.
Prime contractors will also be mandated to commit to growing the domestic defence workforce, with a specific focus on apprenticeships — signalling that Australia's industrial build-out is meant to outlast any single procurement cycle. [1]