National Defence committee  Yes, I would, sir. That's critical for all modern forces. It's actually the ability to get these platforms talking to each other, sharing the same threat picture, and being able to use one platform as a way of firing and aiming weapons that might be on a second platform altogether.

National Defence committee  I'm afraid it's not really existent in terms of any significant capability at all for large-scale vessels. It's there for extremely small-scale commercial-type fishery vessels, pleasure craft, and things of that nature, but all of the large-scale construction is really now around naval construction, military construction.

National Defence committee  No, there are some serious challenges, certainly, to ramp up to the anticipated construction that we'll have in four or five years' time with the multiple projects under way. The government has a good development plan around how we can build those skills through training and education across the Australian tertiary education sector, which is very necessary.

National Defence committee  —so we're always going to be struggling.

National Defence committee  Thank you. There is, I think, a publicly well-articulated expression of China's long-term strategy and that's the one belt, one road strategy that is about building infrastructure by road, rail, and pipeline across to central Asia and then down south by building port infrastructure in a range of countries all the way up through to Pakistan and the gulf.

National Defence committee  I think the most significant thing that's happening in terms of the Asian arms race is the growth of submarine capability, with a massive expansion on the part of the Chinese. It's almost easier to list the countries that are not developing submarines than countries that are. They include new and unlikely players such as Bangladesh.

National Defence committee  The first thing to say is that Australia is becoming an extremely competent manufacturer of submarines, and I would commend that to Canada when it thinks about where its next submarines should come from. I really don't mean that flippantly. I think the more we could achieve in terms of commonality of design around sensors and weapons, the better that would be.

National Defence committee  Yes, it has mostly been the story that governments have continued with past contracts, but every fresh government has a chance to redesign and rethink how it wishes to proceed. I don't know how it works here, but certainly one of the biggest challenges we face now is the lobbying influence of state governments seeking to attract work to their states.

National Defence committee  I'm encouraged to hear that. However, we are now locked into future shipbuilding being centred on South Australia, with a little bit in the west, and that's going to be very hard for any future government to reverse.

National Defence committee  We have quite a diverse range of partners in shipbuilding construction in particular. The French company DCNS has won the design contract for our future submarine. The government has already stated that we will use an American combat system with that, the AN/BYG-1 combat system, which is a U.S. design.

National Defence committee  The Americans would certainly be our closest ally in terms of operational activities. We have an incredibly close relationship with them. We also work very closely with your navy, the British navy, the Singaporeans, and, increasingly, the Japanese. We have a navy that is actually very interoperable with navies in the region, but the U.S. is by far the largest and closest of our allies.

National Defence committee  That's a big canvas, of course, Mr. Garrison, but I think we're going through a period of rapid and fundamental strategic change in the Asia-Pacific region. People are very credibly claiming that there is an arms race under way in north Asia in conventional weapons systems. I don't think that is an exaggeration.

National Defence committee  The first thing I can say is that you're being too kind. In terms of the judgment about the quick delivery of our vessels, we have had some significant delays on major construction projects, including the largest one under way right now, the air warfare destroyer. Up until now, we have used a strategy of modular construction.

National Defence committee  In Australia, this is the central political challenge of allocating contracts. I think that the government, as well as our opposition, has finally bitten the bullet on the realization that if we are going to maintain a viable shipbuilding industry at all, we will have to consolidate the overall number of yards.

National Defence committee  In our case, we have a mixed defence industrial base. This enables us to do some elements of systems integration and produce high-level radar capability indigenously, and that is now featured on a number of our warships, but we have tended to go to the U.S. for combat systems and weapons systems.