I rise today to speak in support of the Defence Legislation Amendment (Accelerating Capability and Protecting Bases) Bill 2026. We know that Australia's defence capability must be delivered differently to meet the demands of a more dangerous and unpredictable era where the consequences of delay, costs, and capability underperformance are more serious than they have been in generations. Legacy capability systems, optimised for deliberation and risk minimisation, are not well suited to an environment that demands speed, integration and disciplined execution.

In reflection of this changing need, on 1 December 2025 the government announced significant reform to capability development and delivery, including the establishment of the Defence Delivery Agency from 1 July 2027, with an interim step of the formation of the Defence Delivery Group within Defence from 1 July this year; the establishment of a national armaments director to lead the new agency, responsible for providing advice to ministers on the delivery of acquisition and sustainment projects following government approval; and the centralisation of capability development and contestability functions under the Vice Chief of the Defence Force to support clearer prioritisation, streamlined decision-making and accountability.

This announcement followed the 2023 Defence strategic review and the 2024 National defence strategy, and it was reinforced by the 2026 National defence strategy. This found that defence acquisition and sustainment arrangements were not fit for the scale, complexity or urgency of Australia's strategic circumstances.

The key pillars of the 2026 National defence strategy are clear, urgent and unavoidable. First and foremost is increasing Australia's self-reliance over the longer term. Now, self-reliance doesn't mean fighting or facing threats alone; it means having the homegrown industrial strength to sustain the fight. So inextricably linked to this is another critical pillar from the 2026 National defence strategy, which is to grow Australia's sovereign defence industrial base by shoring up our sovereign supply chain and an appropriately skilled and qualified workforce. Other features of the 2026 National defence strategy include strengthening our bilateral and multilateral security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific.

The government has also directed the ADF to maintain the capacity to defend Australia and our immediate region; to deter, through denial, any potential adversary's attempt to project power against Australia through our northern approaches; to protect Australia's economic connection to our region and the world; to contribute with our partners to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific; and to contribute with our partners to protecting and upholding global rules and norms. So what is required to focus on that is speed to capability. Speed to capability has two parts.

The first element of speed to capability is minimum viable capability. This phrase is sometimes misunderstood because of the word 'minimum'. In this context, minimum viable capability does not mean the bare minimum in terms of operational functionality. It does not mean procuring substandard or barely passable capability for our defence force. It doesn't mean that at all. Minimum viable capability means fit for mission, a capability that achieves a threshold capability effect inclusive of all fundamental inputs of that capability in the required time. Minimum viable capability delivers what Defence needs to achieve a military effect. It can be further developed, scaled and built up, and it includes materiel and sustainment elements so that the management, support and maintenance of the relevant military equipment and platforms can be achieved. In short, it's procuring something that can do the job well by the point in time it is needed.

The second element of speed to capability is minimum viable processes. Again, this does not mean poor or ill considered processes; it means the implementation of targeted and efficient processes that are smooth and that facilitate the delivery of the capability and its ongoing sustainment. Minimum viable processes can ensure that the capability is safe to operate, that it's fit for mission and that our Defence Force personnel have trust and confidence in it no matter the domain. It also ensures that risks and issues associated with that capability are always managed at the appropriate level within the organisation.

The reforms outlined in this bill have at their heart a focus on speed to capability. The development, testing and introduction of new capability just has to take place at a greater pace than ever before. A new capability has to operate in a meaningful and effective way with Australian industry and with our international partners. A framework to facilitate this requires careful thinking. In this respect, the bill establishes new legislative foundations that will enable Defence to develop and secure that capability at pace. It's a key enabler to the full implementation of the National Defence Strategy and the delivery of pillars I and II of the AUKUS trilateral security agreement and partnership with the United States and the United Kingdom.

A central objective of the bill in this respect is to replace fragmented and inconsistent legislative arrangements with clear statutory frameworks supported by defined safeguards, oversight and accountability mechanisms. The reforms improve transparency, consistency, accountability and certainty by establishing these transparent statutory decision-making processes that identify what activities can be carried out, the circumstances in which they may occur, the conditions that apply and the oversight mechanisms. The reforms reduce reliance on complex multijurisdictional exemptions, implied authorities and administrative arrangements that might otherwise be required to support defence activities. They're focused on defence activities, and they provide the legislative support to facilitate them. What does that look like?

Schedule 1 of the bill will create a defence capability framework, a fit-for-purpose capability development and testing framework including for activities conducted with industry and international partners. It is going to streamline the current patchwork of federal, state and territory legislation, which was not necessarily designed with defence purposes in mind and especially that need for speed to capability. Importantly, the framework will operate to remove legal and regulatory hurdles that adversely impact on that speed of capability development. The era of multiple exemptions, licences and approvals from different state and territory authorities for a single activity will come to an end under this framework and with it the corresponding delays, inconsistencies and uncertainties.

Australians expect a properly equipped defence force that uses the best available equipment that is fit for mission. It cannot be that the ADF and its defence industry partners are unable, or limited in their ability, to develop and test advanced capability here in Australia, because this limit would also have the effect of limiting or overly complicating the commercialisation of technology here in Australia, which does nothing to promote our competitiveness or provide incentives for industry to invest.

Importantly, the framework is also critical to enabling the delivery of AUKUS Pillar II signature projects—those being the development of cutting-edge payloads and enabling systems for uncrewed undersea vehicles—with delivery starting in 2027. These uncrewed undersea vehicles will support a range of missions, including to protect critical national seabed infrastructure; deploy cutting-edge surveillance, reconnaissance and strike capabilities; conduct logistics operations; and bolster superiority in antisubmarine and antisurface warfare, mine countermeasures, electronic warfare and contested littoral manoeuvre. All of this further enhances the asymmetric capability of Australia and its partners.

Pillar II often gets lost in the excitement of Pillar I, but Pillar II, with its focus on advanced capabilities and emerging technologies, offers a critical opportunity for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States to pool resources, accelerate innovation, share technology and compete effectively with potential adversaries in areas such as cyber, autonomous capability and artificial intelligence. We've already seen what can go right in this respect, with the relaxation of export controls to enable smoother and faster collaboration and joint collaboration in a licence-free environment. Pillar II offers potentially more transformative impacts for the Australian defence industry and capability because, if it goes right, Australia will be in a position to develop world-leading defence capabilities, including autonomous capability, through growing its defence industrial base, encouraging innovation and then integrating this industrial base with that of its partners. Pillar II could transform the strategic balance in not only the Indo-Pacific but the broader Asian region, because it will illustrate that the world's leading liberal democracies, of which Australia is one, can innovate together to facilitate speed to capability, to deter aggression and to shape the future of warfare by detecting, deterring and responding to threats to critical infrastructure like undersea cables and pipelines.

With respect to Defence bases, the bill also establishes a modern Defence Security Zone Framework that consolidates and replaces a number of fragmented security regimes across defence legislation. The framework applies a consistent approach to security measures across Defence, ADF and relevant foreign partner assets, and it supports tailored security arrangements for Defence facilities, activities, infrastructure and capability. It also provides contemporary powers to address threats posed by drones and other uncrewed systems, including powers to detect, monitor, track, seize, recover, interfere with and, where necessary, neutralise uncrewed systems that present a security threat to Defence personnel, assets or sites.

The work that the men and women who are on our Australian Defence Force bases are doing is truly excellent, and it's non-negotiable that these bases, which house our personnel but also our assets and other Defence infrastructure, should be properly protected. This is urgent because the development of adverse drone and other uncrewed technology is happening rapidly, and our protection of Defence bases cannot lag behind this any more than it already does. Defence needs enduring legislative authority that allows personnel to protect Defence sites, Defence personnel and critical assets from drones and other uncrewed systems. This bill builds on the interim measures the Albanese government has already implemented through the Defence Amendment (Counter-UXS Measures) Regulations 2025.

The reforms in this bill move us further forward by modernising security arrangements currently spread across multiple Defence statutes and consolidating them into a single Defence Security Zone Framework. This provides a contemporary and consistent framework that enables Defence security zones to be established in order to protect locations, assets, personnel and capabilities, as well as foreign partner assets.

The reforms also support increasingly important security requirements associated with AUKUS activities, visiting US and UK nuclear powered submarines and major Defence industrial precincts. To be clear, the reforms do permit the detection, identification, monitoring, tracking and response to drones and uncrewed systems, including through destructive means if necessary, at defence bases that may be at risk, but this is entirely appropriate, and there are safeguards which provide that the action must be proportionate to the risk. The reforms in this bill will enable Defence to act before an authorised system compromises sensitive information, disrupts an activity or causes harm. Defence must work with other agencies including the Civil Aviation Safety Authority to ensure the safety of civilian aircraft when conducting these activities at shared facilities.

Australia's strategic environment is changing rapidly. It's characterised by increasing strategic competition, accelerating technological change, growing reliance on sovereign defence industry and deeper cooperation with allies and partners. The reforms in this bill are not only critical enablers of the National defence strategy and AUKUS. They support Australia's national security by facilitating speed to capability and giving authority to our defence personnel under rightly controlled circumstances to protect that capability and the defence bases on which they live and work in the interests of our country. I commend the bill to the chamber.