The Australian government has offered Adelaide University $50 million (US$36.7 million) in a major collaboration between industry and academia to develop and build up the country’s sovereign defence industry in increasingly uncertain times.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the partnership, which is the second under the government’s Trailblazer program, promises to design 100 new defence technologies and products, earmarked to create 1,000 new jobs over the next four years.
“Through our Trailblazer program we will now back in Australia’s brightest and best to develop new defence industry technology and products,” Morrison said in a statement.
Trailblazer is a $270 billion investment designed to utilise Australia’s research power toward the country’s manufacturing priorities.
Morrison also said the investment is aimed at getting more women into defence jobs, particularly through its defence industry internship program which has a 40 percent female participation target.
“But I want us to do better than that,” the prime minister told reporters.
“What I think is really important is ... people can get those opportunities, working in these advanced defence industries, advanced manufacturing businesses.”
The centre-left Labor opposition has accused the incumbent centre-right Coalition government of the largest foreign policy failure since World War II after the Solomon Islands entered into a contract with China under his leadership.
Morrison said that he would continue to stand up against Chinese coercion.
“We’re not going to have a submissive relationship with China and I don’t think it’s in the interests of Pacific nations to have a submissive relationship with China,” Morrison said.
The prime minister has regularly noted Labor’s poor track record with defence spending, citing cuts to the sector under Labor when last in government.
Curtin University was the first to be selected in the Trailblazer from a two-stage competitive assessment process where universities had to submit expressions of interest as well as detailed business cases.
Acting Minister for Education and Youth Stuart Robert said that this Trailblazer funding means more jobs in Australia, a stronger economy and stronger national defence.
“The investment of industry partners, and especially by the 35 partner small businesses, shows that our homegrown defence firms are hungry to innovate and to help secure Australia in the increasingly uncertain Indo-Pacific strategic environment,” Robert said.
“This project will help harness the cutting-edge defence research being done in our top universities, and ensure that our defence forces have access to defence technology at the global cutting-edge, including applications of quantum materials, hypersonics, and robotics.”
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