Submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence
Inquiry into the annual report of the Department of Defence 2024-25
Defence begins with preventing war: peacebuilding, resilience and the security of a connected Australia
Submitted by: David Higginbottom on behalf of Make Peace A Priority
Date: 13 August 2026
Central proposition: The first duty of defence is to prevent the conditions in which Australians may be asked to fight, die or survive a catastrophic war. Australia needs the capacity to protect itself, but its deepest security will not be created by military capability alone. It will be created by reducing tensions, preventing conflict, strengthening relationships, protecting the systems on which life depends, and addressing the shared threats that no state can defeat with weapons.
Executive summary
This submission addresses each of the Committee's stated terms of reference through one central proposition: peacebuilding is real and preventive defence. Australia should retain the capacity to protect itself, but major defence investments should be tested not only by the capability they acquire, but by whether they reduce the likelihood, severity and duration of conflict. Where a capability may contribute to deterrence, it should also be assessed for its effects on escalation risk, Australian sovereignty, regional trust and the resilience of the society it is intended to defend.
The Department of Defence's 2024-25 annual report records substantial activity in sovereign industry, AUKUS, uncrewed and autonomous systems, advanced propulsion, cyber, space, logistics and critical infrastructure. It also states that Defence is accountable to Parliament and should show how public resources produce agreed outcomes. [2] [3] [4] This inquiry should therefore ask whether the ultimate outcome is a safer Australia and a more peaceful region, rather than the acquisition of capability as an end in itself. For AUKUS in particular, Parliament and the public need a coherent annual account of cost, milestones, risk, sovereignty and strategic consequences, rather than a succession of announcements that do not allow those matters to be assessed together.
A war between major powers would be disastrous for Australia and the wider region. It would destroy lives, communities, trade, essential services, climate action, democratic institutions and the social and economic foundations that defence exists to protect. Australia needs an upstream security strategy that acts on the drivers of insecurity - mistrust, arms escalation, unresolved conflict, climate disruption, inequality, resource pressure and weak international cooperation - rather than concentrating only on their downstream symptoms.
The Make Peace a Priority (MPAP) agenda provides a practical institutional pathway. It calls for peacebuilding to be elevated within government, for fragmented peace-related functions to be coordinated, and for Australia to strengthen conflict-prevention capacity and multilateral peacebuilding. [9] These measures should be treated as part of the national-security architecture. They complement responsible defence planning by helping to avert the crises that military forces may otherwise be asked to manage.
1. Uplift of sovereign defence industry
The Committee's concern with sovereign defence industry is important. However, sovereignty should not be reduced to local expenditure, local branding or a limited number of assembly jobs. A genuinely sovereign capability is one Australia can understand, maintain, repair, adapt, decide to use and, where necessary, decide not to use.
The annual report describes investment in industry and infrastructure, including the Henderson Defence Precinct, the Osborne Naval Shipyard, guided-weapons production and industry partnerships. [3] The Committee should ask Defence to distinguish clearly between Australian expenditure and Australian capability. In a crisis, the relevant questions are whether Australia has access to the necessary skills, engineering documentation, software updates, data, parts, munitions, repair facilities, communications and legal authority to operate independently.
A published sovereignty scorecard should therefore identify critical dependencies in software, data, intellectual property, maintenance, trained workforce, components, foreign permissions, finance and communications. It should show what proportion of each dependency can be managed by Australians, the risk if external supply or permission is constrained, and the plan to reduce that risk.
Sovereign industry should also strengthen the civilian systems that keep Australia functioning. The Critical Infrastructure Resilience Plan identifies continuity of operations, supply-chain risk mapping and cross-sector understanding of dependencies as national resilience priorities. [7] The Committee should ask whether Defence industry policy adds to the engineering, energy, cyber security, communications, transport, ship-repair, medical-supply and disaster-logistics capacity that Australia would need in any serious disruption.
A peaceful country still needs capable industry. But the public purpose of industry policy should be to make people safer in the broadest sense, not simply to deepen dependence on high-cost weapons systems or draw scarce workers from the essential civilian sectors on which national resilience depends.
2. Strategic and capability rationale for AUKUS Pillar 1, and delivery of and opportunities for AUKUS Pillar 2
This inquiry provides an appropriate opportunity for the Committee to examine AUKUS comprehensively: its strategic and capability rationale; decision-making process; transparency; budget and lifecycle cost; cost-effectiveness compared with alternative security investments; and implications for Australian sovereignty and independent decision-making. The annual report records more than $220 million of infrastructure work in 2024-25 for Submarine Rotational Force - West, as part of the pathway to a conventionally armed nuclear-powered submarine capability. [3] These matters have consequences for public finance, industrial capacity, workforce planning, regional perceptions and Australian decision-making.
AUKUS Pillar 1
The Committee should request a stand-alone AUKUS Annual Assurance Statement. Subject to legitimate national-security limits, it should provide a plain-language, decision-focused account of milestones, schedule confidence, lifecycle cost ranges, safety and regulatory readiness, workforce requirements, industrial dependencies, operational decision rights, and the extent to which Australia retains meaningful political and operational choice.
The Statement should bring together information that is otherwise released through separate announcements, and enable Parliament and the public to understand the whole commitment and the decisions still to be made. It should include a peace, escalation and regional-trust assessment. It is not enough to say that a capability has deterrent value. Deterrence depends on perception, communication, credibility and restraint. A capability may strengthen security in one context while increasing threat perceptions, stimulating countermeasures or narrowing diplomatic space in another. Parliament should receive evidence that considers both effects.
The key strategic question is whether the program helps to make war less likely, or instead risks tying Australia more closely to the strategic choices of larger powers without sufficient public assessment of the consequences. The Committee should ask what conflict-prevention, crisis-communication and regional-diplomacy initiatives accompany the military investment, and how AUKUS is reconciled with Australia's objective of being a trusted and independent regional partner.
AUKUS Pillar 2
Pillar 2 should be directed first toward technologies that protect and sustain a connected society: secure communications, cyber defence, maritime domain awareness, resilient logistics, counter-disruption technology, energy resilience, critical-infrastructure protection and tools that strengthen civilian disaster response. The annual report records activity in uncrewed maritime systems, cyber, space and other advanced capabilities. [3]
Pillar 2 must not become a general justification for unexamined technology programs. Each project should state the defined Australian risk it addresses, the evidence of effectiveness, the sovereign capability it builds, its legal and ethical safeguards, its dependencies and how success will be measured. The Committee should request a public-interest test that compares military options with diplomatic, civilian-resilience and peacebuilding measures that might reduce the same risk with fewer escalation consequences.
MPAP's core insight is directly relevant: Australia should build security through peacebuilding, independence, regional relationships and the prevention of conflict. [9] AUKUS should therefore be assessed not only for the equipment it acquires but for whether it advances or constrains Australia's ability to pursue an independent and peace-oriented foreign policy.
3. Development of and investment in uncrewed and autonomous systems
The annual report records Australia's first large-scale AUKUS trial of autonomous maritime systems during Exercise Autonomous Warrior 2024, the ongoing introduction of tactical and small uncrewed aerial systems, and development of the MQ-28A Ghost Bat. [3] These technologies may have legitimate applications in search and rescue, maritime awareness, mine countermeasures, disaster assessment, hazardous logistics, communications resilience and defensive protection.
They also pose risks that Parliament should scrutinise. Autonomous and AI-enabled systems can shorten decision time, obscure accountability, create software and data dependencies, increase the possibility of accident and make escalation faster than diplomacy can respond. Where systems have the capacity to affect life, liberty or the use of force, there must be meaningful human responsibility and control.
The Committee should recommend a staged, accountable approach. Before a system moves from trial to acquisition-scale deployment, Defence should demonstrate a defined Australian security need, operational reliability, cyber resilience, legal accountability, safety assurance, data protection, export-control safeguards and a clear assessment of likely effects on escalation and civilian harm. Defence should publish a policy that states who is accountable for design, data, authorisation, operation, incident investigation and remedial action.
Investment should be directed first toward applications that protect life and strengthen resilience. This would ensure that autonomous systems are not simply another step in an accelerating arms race, but part of a defence posture designed to prevent harm, support neighbours during crises and protect the essential systems of national life.
4. Supersonic and hypersonic propulsion systems and related testing infrastructure
The annual report describes long-range hypersonic missile technology as developmental and includes hypersonics among the air domain's long-range strike priorities. [3] The Committee should ensure that early-stage research is not allowed to progress by momentum alone into a major capability commitment without a clear Australian use case and a rigorous public-interest assessment.
Supersonic and hypersonic technologies may have military utility. They may also intensify insecurity by reducing warning time, increasing uncertainty, and narrowing opportunities for communication and de-escalation during a crisis. Their development must therefore be assessed for its likely effect on strategic stability as well as its technical performance.
Before any acquisition-scale decision, Defence should provide an unclassified strategic rationale; credible alternatives; a whole-of-life cost range; requirements for overseas technology access; the domestic scientific and industrial contribution; test-range safety and environmental assurance; and an assessment of legal, escalation and regional-security consequences. The Committee should request evidence that any testing infrastructure can support public-purpose applications where feasible - such as space, communications, materials science, emergency response or civil aviation safety - rather than becoming a narrow and irreversible commitment to a single weapons pathway.
This is not an argument against research. It is an argument for restraint, transparency and a clear demonstration that the technology contributes to the prevention of war and the protection of Australians, rather than merely to the capacity to fight a more destructive war.
5. Other issue for the Committee: real defence for a connected nation
Preventing causes, not only managing symptoms
Australia is increasingly asked to respond to the symptoms of a disordered world: humanitarian crises, forced displacement, maritime insecurity, supply shortages, cyber disruption, climate disasters and political polarisation. Strong response capacity matters. But a country that responds only after instability has taken hold is permanently on the back foot.
Forced displacement, disrupted trade, cyber insecurity, food insecurity and humanitarian crises are not isolated problems that can be solved only by stronger borders, more surveillance or more military power. They are often the consequences of conflict, persecution, climate stress, economic collapse and the failure of diplomacy. Australia should be prepared to respond to these crises, but genuine defence also means helping to prevent the conditions that cause them.
The Committee can ask whether Defence investment is part of a coherent upstream strategy. It should ask how capability decisions are linked to diplomatic initiatives, regional dialogue, humanitarian and disaster-response partnerships, critical-infrastructure resilience and government action on climate risk. The annual report records Pacific maritime-security and humanitarian-assistance activity, and recognises climate change as a national-security threat. [3] [5] These should not sit at the margin of national security. They are part of how conflict and crisis can be prevented.
Resilience and connectedness
Australia's prosperity and everyday safety depend on reliable shipping, ports, fuel, medicines, food, energy, data networks, cloud services, financial systems and communications. The Commonwealth's critical-infrastructure framework identifies the importance of continuity, supply-chain risk mapping and cross-sector dependencies. [7] The Government's 2025 risk review similarly identifies the interdependence of energy, water, food, health, transport, finance and communications, and their exposure to global supply-chain and geopolitical disruption. [8]
The annual report identifies protection of supporting critical infrastructure, theatre logistics, cyber, space and resilient northern bases among Defence priorities. [3] The Committee should ask whether proposed investment helps Australia remain connected, supplied, informed and capable of peaceful cooperation during disruption. A nuclear submarine cannot repair a damaged civil telecommunications system. A hypersonic weapon cannot restore a disrupted supply chain. Military capability is necessary in some circumstances, but it cannot substitute for societal resilience and conflict prevention.
Peacebuilding as institutional defence
A commitment to peace needs institutions, staff, funding and authority. It cannot remain a rhetorical aspiration invoked after conflict begins. MPAP proposes three practical reforms [9]:
Expand the Minister for International Development's role to become Minister for International Development and Peacebuilding, giving conflict prevention and regional cooperation visible ministerial leadership.
Consolidate fragmented peace-related functions in DFAT - including conflict prevention, humanitarian affairs and international security - under a single Deputy Secretary, so prevention is coordinated rather than dispersed.
Increase resourcing for conflict prevention, including stronger Australian participation in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and support for independent peace research and policy capability.
The Committee cannot itself redesign government. It can, however, recommend that the Government treat peacebuilding expenditure and capability as part of the national-security architecture. A strengthened, coordinated DFAT peacebuilding function should be paired with formal Defence-DFAT planning and reporting on conflict prevention, regional dialogue, early warning, humanitarian response, resilience and the escalation implications of major capability choices. A stronger peacebuilding system would allow the ADF to focus on the genuinely necessary role of defence while reducing the frequency and severity of crises to which it must respond.
Conclusion: defence begins before war
The Committee should ask not only what capabilities Defence has acquired, but what kind of Australia those capabilities help to create. A safer Australia is not one that is most heavily armed in the abstract. It is one that is hardest to coerce, least likely to be drawn into war, most capable of maintaining the essential connections of national life, and most trusted as a regional partner.
The Department's annual report rightly emphasises accountability, performance and the connection between public resources and results. [4] The essential result should be peace with security: a country capable of self-defence, but equally committed to stopping conflict before it begins; resilient in the face of disruption; sovereign in its choices; and willing to invest in the human, diplomatic and institutional conditions that make war less likely.
That is the purpose of real defence. It is the preventive-defence agenda that MPAP invites Australia to adopt.
Consolidated recommendations
Recommendation Requested Committee action Purpose
| 1. Define security as prevention as well as preparedness. | Recommend that future Defence reporting identify how strategy and investment reduce the risk of conflict, escalation and harm - not merely how they increase military capacity. | Defence should be judged by the security it creates, including the conflicts it helps to avert.
| 2. Require a peace, escalation and regional-trust impact assessment for major capabilities. | Require Defence to publish, subject to legitimate security limits, an assessment of how major projects affect strategic stability, crisis management, regional relationships, arms-race dynamics and pathways for de-escalation. | Capability may deter in some circumstances, but it can also be perceived as threatening. Parliament needs evidence on both effects.
| 3. Support an institutional reform agenda as a national-security measure. | Refer to government the case for a Minister for International Development and Peacebuilding; a consolidated DFAT peacebuilding function under one Deputy Secretary; stronger resourcing for conflict prevention and the UN Peacebuilding Commission; and formal Defence-DFAT planning and reporting on prevention and de-escalation. | Conflict prevention, dialogue and cooperation are the first line of defence against wars that no military can make safe.
| 4. Adopt a connectedness and resilience test for all major investments. | Ask Defence to report how each investment protects essential supply chains, fuel, food, health, energy, data, communications, ports, transport, disaster response and social cohesion. | Australia is secure only when its people and essential systems can continue to function through disruption.
| 5. Apply a public-interest and peace test to AUKUS. | Request a stand-alone AUKUS Annual Assurance Statement: a plain-language, decision-focused public account of costs, milestones, sovereignty, operational decision rights, industrial dependencies, safety, workforce impacts, regional consequences and alternatives that reduce the same risk without intensifying escalation. | Long-term security cannot rest on opaque commitments whose effect on Australian choice and regional trust is not openly tested.
| 6. Govern autonomous and advanced-propulsion technologies for restraint and accountability. | Recommend meaningful human control over force; clear legal accountability; testing, cyber and safety safeguards; and independent assessment of whether each system reduces harm or heightens escalation risk. | New technology should serve protection, rescue, resilience and conflict prevention - not only a faster and more dangerous arms race.
| 7. Report the opportunity cost of militarised responses. | Require comparable public reporting on non-military measures - diplomacy, peacebuilding, climate resilience, humanitarian response, critical-infrastructure protection and regional development - that mitigate the same underlying risk. | Sound defence chooses the measure that best prevents harm, rather than assuming that every problem has a military answer.
References
1] Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence, Inquiry into the annual report of the Department of Defence 2024-25 - https://www.aph.gov.au/search/url/Inquiry/27407_24197_
2] Department of Defence Annual Report 2024-25: Chapter 2 - Departmental overview - https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department_of_defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2024-25/chapter-2%3A-departmental-overview
3] Department of Defence Annual Report 2024-25: Chapter 7 - Capability - https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department_of_defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2024-25/chapter-7%3A-capability
4] Department of Defence Annual Report 2024-25: Chapter 4 - Management and accountability - https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department_of_defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2024-25/chapter-4%3A-management-and-accountability
5] Department of Defence Annual Report 2024-25: Chapter 6 - Partnerships and engagement - https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department_of_defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2024-25/chapter-6%3A-partnerships-and-engagement
6] Department of Defence Annual Report 2024-25: Chapter 9 - Financial summary - https://www.transparency.gov.au/publications/defence/department_of_defence/department-of-defence-annual-report-2024-25/chapter-9%3A-financial-summary
7] Australian Government, Critical Infrastructure Resilience Plan 2023 - https://www.cisc.gov.au/resources-subsite/Documents/critical-infrastructure-resilience-plan-2023.pdf
8] Minister for Home Affairs and Cyber Security, Critical infrastructure annual risk review highlights changing risk landscape (3 November 2025) - https://minister.homeaffairs.gov.au/TonyBurke/Pages/critical-infrastructure-annual-risk-review-highlights-changing-risk-landscape.aspx ; Australian Government, Critical infrastructure annual risk review 2025 - https://www.cisc.gov.au/resources-subsite/Documents/critical-infrastructure-annual-risk-review-2025.pdf
9] Make Peace a Priority, Background documents - https://mpap.au/documents/background and https://mpap.au.