Sovereign Industry
Most of Australia's supply chains are fine. The deadly few are not. At present no one in government is responsible for finding them all, measuring how long we could last without them and fixing them before the next test. I am proposing a practical answer: a national audit, a ten-year plan and a permanent home to deliver it. This page brings together my published work on the issue.
Published articles and media
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Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence inquiry into national civil preparedness and resilience, 1 September 2026
The case in brief
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Why now: in March 2026, as conflict closed the Strait of Hormuz, Australia found it held roughly 30 days of diesel. Water treatment chemicals, medicines, fertiliser and munitions carry the same kind of risk, yet nobody measures it across the whole nation.
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A national audit: for every critical product, measure stock on hand, daily consumption, domestic production capacity and the lead time to find another supplier, so that time to failure becomes a calculation rather than a guess.
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Strong leadership: an independent steering committee, constituted as a sub-committee of National Cabinet and chaired by a captain of industry with advanced manufacturing experience, alongside a senior defence industry executive, a scientist from Defence science and technology or the CSIRO, a national logistics leader, a senior military logistician and the Chief of the Defence Force or a representative.
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A ten-year plan: the audit returns a costed, staged plan that government, industry and the states can act on the day it reports, not another review to be tabled, welcomed and shelved.
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A Sovereign Industry Fund: co-investment with private capital in fuel, water treatment chemicals, pharmaceutical precursors, munitions, critical minerals processing and dual-use manufacturing, backed by tax incentives, long-term procurement, skills and Strategic Sovereign Industry Zones in regional centres such as Newcastle, Townsville, Whyalla, Geelong, Gladstone, Rockingham and Launceston.
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A Department of Sovereign Industry: a permanent home to own the plan, run the Fund and the Zones, keep a national risk register and report publicly, so the work outlasts the ministers who launch it.
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The economic case: markets under-price resilience, as Treasury's 2024 National Interest Framework acknowledges, and Bloomberg Economics estimates a war over Taiwan would cut world GDP by about 10 per cent. Stockpiles buy time; only industrial capacity buys resilience.
This is an evidence-based, non-partisan case, and it should stand or fall on its merits under any government. If you work in industry, government or the policy community and would like to discuss it, please get in touch via the Contact page.
