Robert Nioa, Group CEO of the country’s biggest Australian-owned and Queensland-based supplier of military munitions to the defence forces, also called for swift action for the nation to fortify its relations with the United States.

Mr Nioa was the keynote speaker at a Brisbane conference Thursday on the “State of National Security”, hosted by the American Chambers of Commerce Queensland (AMCHAM).

“….After a (recent) series of meetings with senior US defence officials, as well as meetings at the Pentagon…I am even more convinced upon the return on the basis of those meetings, the absolute critical importance and nature of the relationship between Australia and the US and that contribution to the security of the Indo Pacific region,” he said.

The US trip also reinforced the urgency in ensuring Australia’s defence industries increased its productivity, capabilities and innovation, Mr Nioa said.

 The US remains the “world’s arsenal of democracy” and “is stirring” every week as America gears its defence industry for more urgent production, he said.

He told the conference of the Americans’ sense of concern about the “global strategic environment” amid escalating geopolitical tensions are “palpable”.

Australia needs a stronger and larger scale defence base to it can be a contributor to the allied efforts and “not simply a drain”, Mr Noia said.

“The upshot is that we have to be prepared to look after our own interests do some of our own heavy lifting, but we need to do that while supporting the United States and allies.

“…We’re asking for an urgent review of procurement policies with a commitment to buy from Australian owned and Australian run companies,’’ he said.

Mr Nioa said he was confident the federal government’s Australia’s National Defence Strategy due later year will align Australia’s defence industry approach with the work being done in the US.

Mr Nioa later joined a panel of industry experts and told the conference Australia’s preparedness for national security was “appalling”.

“You need a broad all of nation’s national approach which has got things well beyond resilience, well beyond the physical items, warfare, national resiliency and electricity systems and food supply, and all sorts of supply chain issues and I don’t think we’ve done a fraction of the work that needs to be done,’ Mr Nioa said.

Panel moderator Rebecca Shrimpton, who is the  Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Director Defence Strategy and National Security, said the country faced key challenges in globalised supply chains.

Ms Shrimpton said Australia’s reliance on foreign-made components for defence left it with “key vulnerabilities” in both peacetime and conflict.

She said Australia’s industrial bases are also increasingly exposed to the risk of cyber attacks and losing their technological edge and capability through industrial espionage.

Panellist and Tech Start up investor Steve Baxter said the way in which Australia acquires defence capability was “diabolical” and would only change after a “mass casualty battlefield loss”.

He said of his business approach to help create a better sovereign defence manufacturing base was by selling a wide variety of capability through his portfolio companies to the rest of the world.

Mr Baxter said he has 160 companies in the pipeline at around $200 million value and had developed a “valley of death” innovation centre with “amazing capability”.

However the Australia Defence Forces ADF did not want to buy it or would take ten years to do so, he said.

“Unless we have lots of experience and lots of talent, lots of innovation we just can’t respond as fast.  Other nations around the world buy military equipment easier and better for the most part and so that’s out market. ….we think Australian defence forces are broken and we actually zero them out in any financial equations with respect to our companies,” Mr Baxter told the conference.

Panellist and cyber security expert Katherine Mansted told the conference national security was an all-encompassing challenge.

Ms Mansted, who is CyberCX’s Executive Director Cyber Intelligence, said Australia faces an unprecedented challenge that is different in character, scale, scope and complexity.

“And it’s a fight that we’re already in. It’s not a fight that we will lose or win in the context of a battlefield. It’s a fight our defence industry, critical infrastructure and society is specifically engaged in now.

Ms Mansted said when it comes to national security and border challenges the Australian government and cyber industry are only small players.

“The bigger part of that story…comes down to  every other part of the economy doing its job live cyber resilience and in lean into and find a pathway through cyber risk because the government is not going to do that.

“The government where companies have an incident, doesn’t ride in on its white horse of cyber and fix things, its industry that does that,’ she said.

Ms Mansted said in some ways Australia needed to “flip” its thinking that it no longer lives in a more peaceful world without cyber where the government led on national security and dictated defence requirements.

“Now national security has come to all of us, we are on the frontlines, whether we sit in government or not. And the responsibility for managing that risk and for building that resilience, which was a little bit of a dirty word in our economy maybe five years ago, pre COVID. That’s now the watchword building that resilience being ready for what we are in a fight persistently that we must engage with,’’ she said.

 National Security Association of Australia chair Alok Patel said in terms of national security the country was unprepared, unequipped to fight on its own and not economically resilient.

“My way of framing is Australia’s greatest national product is housing and we don’t even have enough of that…we can’t export it…we can’t export the skills that we’ve developed to establish that..so we’re not economically resilient and we can’t deter economic warfare that is being fought on a daily basis.

Australia cannot be resilient without being prosperous and need to go beyond maintaining the status quo economically, he said.

“…As you evaluate the notion of the level of threat and the level of risks we’re facing, and certainly any of us looking at cyber risks are obviously seeing and like just a significant assault and a need to raise the bar constantly.

“We need to be a threat because we’re doing so fundamentally, economically well, that people are going I don’t want to mess with them. I’d rather find a way to join them. And that is really what we need as a nation,’’ he said.

 Mr Patel said Australia has the opportunity to set the agenda for national security.

He said White House has released the US’s comprehensive strategy encompassing both the economic dimensions of national security as well as defence solutions.

“We have an opportunity to do more than just be able to survive, but to thrive, and that’s a mandate and a challenge that I have and I think that’s what is the positive upbeat side of where we’re at is that we can do more,’’ Mr Patel said.