Australia moves to protect AUKUS pact as minister warns ‘time is running out’

Australia is on a mission to secure the AUKUS pact as Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy warned “time is running out”.

Australia has launched a diplomatic charm offensive to rip up American red tape that could undermine the AUKUS pact by limiting our access to high-tech weapons.

Domestic rules for defence manufacturers will also be overhauled, with Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy warning critical innovations are stranded in a “valley of death” in Australia even as “time is running out” to strengthen our military.

“We are no longer in a benign peacetime circumstance,” he said.

“You think about World War II about the speed of producing arms – we’re in a similar situation now and we need to speed it up.”

Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy at the G'Day conference in Washington on October 13. Picture: Yuri Gripas

Mr Conroy used high-level talks in Washington DC last week to push US government and military chiefs to break down “stubborn barriers” to sharing defence technology.

Strict export controls mean Australia is already limited from maintaining and repairing American-made hardware including guided weapons.

Bill Greenwalt, a former top US defence official, warned earlier this year that such regulations could similarly hamper co-operation on hypersonics and electronic warfare under AUKUS, leaving the pact “dead in the water” without changes.

Speaking at the G’Day USA defence industry dialogue last week, Australia’s US ambassador Arthur Sinodinos said these were “wicked problems” but he hoped AUKUS would be the “Trojan horse to actually bust through some of those barriers”.

Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy at the G'Day conference in Washington on October 13. Picture: Yuri Gripas

He said he was working with congressional leaders who were “showing more flexibility than I expected” on legislative changes.

Mr Conroy said he understood the need for restrictions on sharing the “crown jewels” of America’s industrial complex, but that Australia could not afford regulatory delays.

“On defence industrial collaboration, there is a unity of will to deliver that … and that is driven by the deteriorating strategic circumstances that we’re all facing,” he said.

British Vice Admiral Martin Connell, the Navy’s second highest-ranking officer, also recently called for the US to make changes so that AUKUS was not hampered.

“Otherwise these collaborations are going to be very seriously retarded when we can’t really afford them to be so,” he said.

Australia’s US ambassador Arthur Sinodinos.

United States Studies Centre research fellow Tom Corben said American regulations were more likely to affect co-operation on commercially available defence hardware, with cleaner mechanisms in place to share top-secret information on nuclear submarines.

In an interview, Mr Conroy also said it was unacceptable Australian companies found it was “easier for them to do business with the Pentagon than it is with Australia”.

He has ordered a departmental review of domestic red tape to ensure the government was “getting bang for buck” from its $3bn investment in advanced defence research.

“We have to pick winners … Our strategic circumstances and the fact that we do have limited resources means we can’t do everything,” Mr Conroy said.