Chief of Navy Speeches: Video Address to Goldrick Seminar

Video Address to Goldrick Seminar
Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise: Its contribution to Navy Strategy
Australian Defence Force Academy

Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you to Vice Admiral Jones for inviting me to give this opening address.

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which you are meeting today and pay my respects to their Elders both past and present. I would also like to pay my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and women who have contributed to the defence of Australia in times of peace and war.

I regret that I cannot attend this year’s Goldrick Seminar in person, as I am currently travelling in the United States for the International Seapower Symposium.

The Goldrick seminars are important events in the Defence calendar. The opportunity for a diverse range of people from Defence, Navy, academia, industry and the public, to come together, hear from keynote speakers and engage in syndicate discussions, is vitally important in shaping the future of our Navy.

The outcomes from the syndicate discussions will be delivered to Navy at the end of today, during the final plenary session. These findings will help inform our long term planning, and the update to Plan Mercator, our Navy’s strategy out to 2038.

Three key themes will be presented and discussed today:

• Warfighting
• Capability; and
• Workforce

You will hear today from eminent speakers from sectors of industry from Capability, Acquisition and Sustainment Group, Fleet Command, British Aerospace, the Naval Shipbuilding Taskforce and Defence Science and Technology Group.

I need you to listen carefully to their presentations. Learn from their experience and expertise, and then I want you to challenge the assertions and assumptions made. Use your judgment, experience and knowledge during the syndicate discussions to view these concepts and challenges from a different perspective. Then allow your consolidated feedback to inform our Navy’s long term planning.

The important relationship between Defence, Industry and our academic counterparts has never been more important than it is right now.

This National Enterprise brings together the private and public sectors to deliver a fundamental national objective, which is security above, on and under the sea. And we need to partner and work together in order to achieve this national objective.

Now that the majority of Navy’s major capability decisions have been made, we are rapidly shifting our focus to successful delivery and sustainment of our current and future platforms and our workforce. We will commission Brisbane, the second of our new DDGs in 6 weeks’ time, and we will cut steel for the first of our new OPVs in 10 weeks’ time. We have a very clear understanding of what platforms our Navy will operate over the next 20 years; however, we still have much to do.

For the Navy to fully realise our future as a national enterprise, it is critically important that we see our Navy as a fighting system, not just a collection of platforms.

We cannot underestimate the scale and magnitude of this task. We are undertaking the largest reconstitution of naval capability in living history. The Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise is a National Enterprise and is dependent upon every one of us here to be successful. And we will be successful.

We need to think like a Fighting Navy and fight like a Thinking Navy. And I need your participation today, in all aspects of this seminar and discussions. I need your ability to think like a fighting Navy. This will contribute greatly to our Navy’s long term strategic plan. It will also contribute to the way in which we deliver our commitment to Government; our commitment to create a fully integrated approach to naval capability planning, development, delivery and sustainment.

Thank you for being here at the Goldrick Seminar today, and I wish you all the best for a very productive day.