‘Do not wait’: Kevin Rudd urges defence leaders to make AUKUS pact happen

Australia’s ambassador to the US, former prime minister Kevin Rudd, has urged defence leaders to stay the course to make the AUKUS pact happen.

Kevin Rudd has thrown down the gauntlet to defence industry leaders to deliver on the promise of the AUKUS pact, telling them to “hop into it” as new laws unleash trilateral collaboration on advanced war fighting capabilities.

“Our ability to mobilise AUKUS … really rests on the shoulders of everyone in this room,” Australia’s ambassador to the US told an industry forum in Washington DC.

“Our job is to help make it happen – your job is to make it happen.”

Long-awaited reforms kicked in last month to cut what the former prime minister had called “really crazy” red tape on sharing defence technology between Australia and the US, with cross-country projects now cleared for takeoff without complex export licences.

The AUKUS partners are particularly focused on cutting edge military capabilities including artificial intelligence, quantum computing and hypersonic missiles, on top of Australia’s plans to acquire and build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet.

Australian ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, shared this photo collage from the G’Day USA Defence Industry Dialogue 2024. Picture: Twitter

While urging defence industry firms to take advantage of the “huge breakthrough”, Dr Rudd promised to go into bat for them if American regulators “impede both the letter and spirit” of what he said was designed to be a “seamless environment” of licence-free trade.

“It’ll take a shakedown period as a generation of US regulators adjust to the US system,” he said.

“Hop into it … Do not wait for someone from the government to say you should.”

Dr Rudd also spruiked Australia’s emerging role in space, as Reuters reported that the Biden administration was also preparing to ease export restrictions for Australia and other allies on satellites and spacecrafts used by commercial firms such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The American Australian Association’s defence industry dialogue also heard from senior Australian Defence Department official Chris Deeble, who said Australia and its allies could “no longer assume 10 years of warning time” for conflict and needed “far more agile ways of delivering” military technology as a result.

“I have never ever seen the opportunity that we have to be able to do business differently,” the 37-year industry veteran said.

“But we’re going to have to change the culture that we’ve built up over decades.”

Frederick Stefany, the leader of the US Navy’s maritime industrial base program, agreed it was a “generational challenge and generational opportunity”.

With America needing 140,000 extra workers to build and maintain its submarines and ships over the next decade, and Australia facing its own workforce demands, he revealed the US Navy would soon roll out a new advertising campaign Down Under to bolster recruitment.

The commercials have already aired widely during major sporting events in the US.

Originally published as ‘Do not wait’: Kevin Rudd urges defence leaders to make AUKUS pact happen