Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Honourable Penny Wong. High Commissioners, distinguished guests, industry, academia and international partners, defence colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, dare I say it, sailors, soldiers, aviators, diplomats and technology partners, it is a pleasure to be here in Adelaide for the 2026 Australian Defence Summit. This week, in fact, today, 40 years ago, I boarded a plane for Adelaide, my hometown, to embark on a journey into the unknown, into the Royal Australian Navy, into the Australian Defence Force, not really knowing what lay ahead. But what I did know was that South Australians do difficult things.

This is a state that has delivered on difficult projects for decades and has been home to some of the most capable Australians I've ever met. It is a privilege to share the room with you all today and to anchor our Innovation, Science and Technology Strategy here in the hometown of the Collins class submarine, the Hobart class destroyer, and the future classes of Australian submarines and Tier 1 combatants for generations to come. I'd like to thank Professor Tanya Monro, AC Chief of Defence Scientist, for inviting me to speak today. Tanya, thank you for your leadership and stewardship of the Defence Science and Technology Group over so many years. Thank you for your warm words and your partnership. Most importantly, thank you for your service to our nation, our Defence Force. Our nation is stronger for it. 

I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we meet, the Kaurna people. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging. I recognise all Australian and Torres Strait Aboriginal Torres Strait Islanders who have served in the Australian Defence Force. Those who continue to serve again, our nation is better for your service. Now the Minister has eaten some of my lunch, so I'm going to adjust my remarks in stride. It should not surprise you that a pair of South Australians might overlap on a couple of themes. What I would like to say, I would like to echo Minister Wong's characterisation of our strategic environment. 

The rules based order, which you have heard we have benefited from for decades, is under increasing pressure by those who seek to challenge and change it for their own benefit. An increasing number of actors are using coercion and military force to advance their national interests. This era is more dangerous, unpredictable and uncertain, characterised by intense competition between major powers, increased state on state conflict and attempts to erode the global rules and norms through coercion, force and grey zone activities. And technology is advancing and developing at an unprecedented pace. Missiles are more lethal, they're able to strike from a greater distance. Autonomous and uncrewed systems now fight alongside humans on the battlefield and the information domain has been transformed by artificial intelligence, particularly its utility in disinformation campaigns.

The development and introduction into service of military capabilities using these technologies by forces around the globe has transformed the modern battlefield significantly in recent years. And while these technologies offer many exciting opportunities for new ADF capability, they also mean the geographic protection afforded by distance to Australia has been eroded. The growing reach and lethality of long range strike and autonomous and uncrewed systems and the borderless nature of the space and cyber domains means that a potential adversary no longer needs to be near our shores to pose a serious threat. Together, these factors have resulted in successive national defence strategies, a strategy of deterrence by denial, and a mission for the Australian Defence Force to shape, deter and respond alongside our international and domestic partners. Now, what that means for today's Australian Defence Force is we are doubling down on diplomacy and deterrence first, whilst ensuring we are ready to defend Australia whenever directed by government. So, in that vein, I'd just like to acknowledge the international partners in this room and the members of the diplomatic community. It is your work that is at the vanguard of securing the peace and prosperity for our nation.

It is our job to back you up with strong deterrence capabilities and a readiness always to defend Australia. But thank you to all of you for your service to our nation and the international community, a community of nations. I think you should give yourself a round of applause. 

In these deteriorating strategic circumstances, it is important to remember why the Australian Defence Organisation, both the ADF and the Department of Defence, was established. Displayed at our Naval College is a quote from Captain Alfred Henry Alston, Royal Navy. The quote is from 1859 and it tells our officers under training to remember that your vocation, deliberately chosen, is war. It is war as a means to peace, but war nonetheless, and charges us to prepare diligently for the moment the safekeeping of the realm comes into your hands. I believe this quote remains just as relevant today for every member of the Australia Australian Defence Force and the uniformed members of our allies and partners across every service and every domain. It is a reminder that our core business is warfare and readiness and our expertise in this regard is the foundation of our deterrence capability. We are directed to fulfill defence's mission to defend Australia and its national interests in order to advance Australia's security and prosperity as a lethal focused and integrated force alongside our allies and partners.

In order for us to achieve this mission, we need to maximise our readiness, our effectiveness and our availability and to create a force that is as large and lethal as we can make it. This requires us to embrace the pace and scale of technological change, which is where you, our technology partners in industry, academia and research institutions, come in. Throughout history, militaries have relied upon innovation, science and technology to give them an advantage over their adversaries. The Byzantines employed Greek fire as a potent weapon against wooden naval vessels. Gunpowder firearms offered greater destructive power and required less training than bows.

Aircraft added another war fighting domain to attack from and defend against. And rocket propulsion and ballistic and cruise missiles allowed forces to strike from greater distances than ever before in our modern technology dominated world. Innovation, science and technology continue to provide warfighters with the capabilities and advantages they need to fight and win. As such, investing in innovation, science and technology remains fundamental to to properly equipping and preparing the Australian Defence Force. Our ability to adopt and integrate new and emerging technologies will shape capability development and the effectiveness of the integrated focus force over the coming decade. For some examples of how innovation, science and technology supports the modern warfighter, we should look to Ukraine. The first lesson is the critical importance of developing and acquiring capability at speed, as highlighted in the September 2025 article from ASPI’s The Strategist magazine.

At the start of the war in 2022, the replacement period for battlefield technologies was roughly seven months. In 2025, it had decreased to barely four to six weeks. With such a short replacement period, close cooperation between the military and industry is crucial to ensure requirements are understood and supply is maintained. Ukraine's approach to connecting industry directly with frontline operators, allowing industry to receive constant feedback directly from end users and even observe their products in action, has allowed them to shrink their innovation cycle significantly. It is a model that offers much opportunity. It is worthy of further consideration, but ironically, it is in our DNA already. The first time I went to see an Australian submarine, an Oberon class submarine out of Sydney, there were two scientists from the then Defence Science and Technology Organisation in white overalls at the time conducting trials and experimentation in support of our submarine force. In fact, we have scientists and technologists integrated across the Australian Defence Force from command and control headquarters to our platforms at sea and deployed around the globe. And it is a capability advantage that we must leverage to maximum effect.

The second lesson is the effectiveness of hybrid forces and the asymmetric advantage they provide. Ukrainian troops have used asymmetric, autonomous and uncrewed systems to great success, targeting the industry supply chains and the more exquisite capabilities of their numerically superior adversary. One of the clearest demonstrations of this disproportionate impact is illuminated by Ukraine's operation Spiderwe. With only 117 first person drones, each worth under $1,000 USD, Ukraine was able to damage or destroy a third of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers, causing an estimated $7 billion in damage.

This is what cost effective employment of uncrewed systems looks like. Similar use of autonomous and uncrewed surface and subsurface vessels such as the Sea Baby, Subsea Baby and MAGURA have demonstrated the multi role versatility of these platforms in real combat scenarios. While their environment is markedly different from Australia and their uncrewed systems are a little smaller than Ghost Shark, Ukraine has demonstrated the successful use and performance and potential of autonomous and uncrewed vessels in a conflict scenario and we must embrace and learn from these lessons. As a large island trading nation with a relatively small population and defence force, this is particularly relevant for Australia. Autonomous and uncrewed systems such as MQ4C, Triton, the MQ28, Ghost Bat and the Ghost Shark offer the opportunity to disproportionately increase the deterrence and combat capability of the Australian Defence Force in a manner that can offset our relatively small size.

One of the key factors in Ukraine's achievement and performance is the close partnership their military and government shares with industry. Fostering a similar partnership here in Australia between defence and industry is critical as you are the ones who can develop and provide the ADF with incredible capabilities and sustain its lethal potential. I've had the privilege for decades of bearing witness to the innovative capabilities of scientists in this country and I am as keen as mustard to partner with you to best effect in any way that enhances the survivability, deterrence value and lethality of the Australian Defence Force. The delivery of next generation capabilities including nuclear powered submarines, naval shipbuilding, guided weapons, explosive ordnance, autonomous and uncrewed system systems and AI requires deep collaboration between defence and industry.

We must keep pace with the rapid rate that technology is advancing in order to leverage the opportunities to respond to our ever-evolving strategic environment and to remain as credible and interoperable with our allies and partners as possible. This is a shared challenge. As my good friend, the Vice Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Robert Chipman reminded me, victory smiles upon those who anticipate the changes in the character of war, not upon those who wait to adapt themselves after the changes occur. A great quote from Douhet. This is why we see anticipating the future as the first line of effort in the 2026 Defence Innovation, Science and Technology Strategy. Anticipating the future includes foresight activities and identifying emerging technologies and trends with potential for significant deterrence and asymmetric war fighting effects. Australia has a long history of developing and introducing world leading capabilities with the Jindalee Operational Radar Network, or JORN and Bushmaster being two iconic examples still in operational service today. There are so many more that are classified that I wish I could share with you but I am determined not to for all the right reasons. I hope you understand why, but if you knew what I knew, you would be proud as punch.

We must continue to leverage Australian innovation whilst also accelerating the delivery of capability and embracing today's opportunities in AI and automation in order to ensure our sailors, our soldiers and our aviators receive the lethality enhancements and survivability benefits they need to fulfil our mission. I'll quickly outline some of the capabilities that we're developing and the progress that's been made on them. A lot of you will be familiar with the autonomous non crewed systems mentioned in this slide. The MQ28, the first military aircraft to be designed and manufactured in Australia in over 50 years. It engaged and destroyed an airborne target for the first time in December last year. A contract for the delivery, maintenance and continued development of a fleet of Ghost Shark extra large autonomous undersea vehicles was signed in September last year. Just to illuminate how they work with a nuclear powered submarine capability – a nuclear powered submarine capability like a Virginia class submarine can be anywhere, really fast, anywhere that matters. It's really expensive and difficult to deal with even if you know roughly where it is. Ghost Shark in large quantities can be everywhere else that matters. And the AUKUS Pillar 2 signature project announced at the AUKUS Defence Ministers meeting in May will see us work closely with the United Kingdom and United States on the development of cutting edge payloads and enabling systems for a suite of uncrewed undersea vehicles.

We are making similar strong progress in the development of long range strike capabilities. In just four years we've moved from having no sovereign fuse capability to a flight-proven sovereign loitering munition demonstrator at speed, creating a pathway to ADF capability. And just over four years ago when I took command of the Navy we had a fleet of surface combatants bristling with self defence capability. They are now equipped with long range Tomahawk Land attack missiles, Naval Strike missiles and Standard Missile 6, one of the most capable anti air missiles in the world. Australia is achieving similar success in our development of rocket motors. Earlier this year we successfully tested the largest military-relevant 24 inch diameter rocket motor ever designed and manufactured in this country, helping build the sovereign propulsion capability needed for long range strike weapons. We're also working closely with our international partners on the development of long range strike capability, noting our precision strike missile partnership with the United States and the co-development of hypersonic technologies through the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment and the AUKUS Hypersonic Flight Test and Experiment project arrangement. Together these and other capabilities are laying the foundations for Australia's future long range strike enterprise.

We are helping shape the next generation of strike capabilities alongside our allies and partners whilst building the sovereign industry capability, workforce and expertise needed to support them right here. And finally, we are embracing the opportunities offered by AI and digital technologies in areas including command and control and training. Phoebe is a sovereign digital visualisation and rapid synchronisation platform built through the combined efforts of Defence and Science and Technology Group. Phoebe generates an operable digital twin of the Command and Control Network Force. It has the potential to significantly improve the ADF's ability to command and control complex operations. In fact, Tanya told me she thinks it can save me about 150 uniforms that I can then divert back to the trained force. She's shying away from that assertion now, but Tanya, I'm probably going to hold you to that and Defence. Macquarie University and Plexis have been exploring how AI could enhance air battle management training to support support future training needs. Participants are unable to reliably distinguish between the Advanced Simulation Combat Operations Trainer and the AI and human role players in realistic scenarios.

This demonstrates potential for AI to increase the scale, frequency and accessibility of complex training activities while reducing our reliance on human role players. In conclusion, Defence must remain on the cutting edge of technological innovation in order to deliver asymmetric advantage to the ADF to maximise our deterrence and survivability dividends. The Strategy will enable us to transition new technologies to our warfighters sooner through a balanced approach to risk, deeper partnerships with federal and state governments, industry, academia, allies and a culture of rapid experimentation that enables us to fail fast, learn faster, adapt quickly. It recognises the importance of prioritising work to address operational problems to meet demand signals and generate capability effects. The investments that we are making through this strategy will ensure that our sailors, our soldiers, our aviators, alongside our allies and partners are able to back up our diplomats to pursue peace, prosperity and security for all Australians. 

It's an honour and a privilege and a little ironic to be standing here 40 years after I got on a plane in bad need of a haircut and a good meal to be a representative here of all of our sailors, soldiers, aviators and their families. So, thank you. If you have any questions on my presentation on my Commanders Intent, I'm more than happy to answer them during the panel session. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for your partnership, and more importantly, thank you for your service to our nation.