Meeting The Challenge

0:10 Speaker 1 Failing fast means planning early. 0:12 Speaker 2 I know it's a bit of a no go zone. 0:15 Speaker 1 How do we preserve our way of life? How do we navigate a difficult world? 0:18 Speaker 2 I don't think we are spending enough on defence. 0:20 Speaker 1 The most complex machine known to humankind. 0:23 Speaker 2 We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Think. 0:26 Speaker 1 About the long game we. 0:27 Speaker 2 Need that. 0:32 Speaker 3 Fast Track is produced by the Department of Defence and powered by the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator. ASCA warfare is moving further and faster than ever before. Over this series I'll be talking to the operators, technologists and leaders who are turning fast moving ideas into real world impact. 0:51 In today's episode I'm joined by Air Marshall, Rob Chipman, Vice Chief of the Defence Force, and Professor Beck Stratting, Director of the Latrobe Center for Global Security. Over the next hour we'll have an insightful conversation about what Defence is doing right now to make contemporary threats between them. 1:08 One is shaping reform from within the system, the other studying how that system stacks up against the region around us. It's a candid conversation about what it will take to move at the pace the moment demands. Let's jump in. Welcome Beck and welcome Rob. I think Rob, a bit of a special guest because this is an Asker podcast and of course, Asker reports to you. 1:28 So there's no pressure on me or there is on Beck at all for today. We've done a couple of these podcasts so far, and one of the things I've started and asked my guests, so I'm going to hit you guys up as well with the same thing. The first one is you both had long, storied careers. 1:45 I'm sure you're both still at the peak of your career. But when you reflect back at your, your time and the work that you've done in your in your various fields, and I'll start with you first pick what's the best job that you've had so far? Other than that, you can't say the one you've got. 2:01 OK. So other than the one you currently have, is it, is it running Latrobe Asia? Is it, you know, being an academic, what's, what's the sort of thing that stands out in your mind when you go? If I could go back and and do that again, I'd give that another crack. 2:14 Speaker 2 I, I fear I'm at a bit of a disadvantage because I would really, really like to say the job that I currently have, which is I, that's not allowed. I get, I direct a research centre and so I get to work with amazing researchers everyday we work on really exciting stuff related to global security. 2:35 So I, I know that I'm not allowed to say that I would like to say that, but I am at a bit of a disadvantage because I have one of those terribly boring kind of trajectories where I went to university and I stayed at university and I have never really left university. 2:52 I mean, I've been to some different universities and I think the reason for that is my curiosity about the world has never really shifted. So apart from that, I've only been a waitress, which I quite enjoyed. But when I was a teenager, I was a tour guide at the Dunham Musical Village. 3:12 The Southern hemisphere is then only musical Village, sadly no longer exists. So that was a pretty good job for a teenager where I'll take people on tours and play interesting musical instruments. 3:25 Speaker 3 Oh, excellent. I mean, I have to say, I mean, I did a bit of bar work when I was at university and I have to say that that were very fond memories. When I look back at it, I'm not sure if I want to go back and do it again it. 3:35 Speaker 2 Was very social life working? 3:37 Speaker 3 In popularity it's basically am I working or just having a social life because it one seems the same thing when you do that type of stuff. Rob, you've had a pretty amazing career in defence. You're vice chief of Defence Force. I mean you're a fighter pilot. So I kind of look at that and always think, jeez, that's pretty hard to beat. 3:56 Do you have a particular, you know, was it being a a new fighter pilot? Was it commanding a squadron, you know, or of course you've been chief of Air Force before this job, which, which one of those you kind of look and go, jeez, that was a cracking part of my career. 4:09 Speaker 1 I must say, Pete, it's been about 10 years since I've been flying fighters, so I kind of look back on it as as pretty hard to beat now as well. And to be honest, it was for me being CEO of a fighter squadron, that was something that I will always remember. But having the keys to an organization like that in a, in an environment, it's not the nostalgia of flying. 4:28 It's actually being part of a, a really professional, hard working, high performance team that are, that are committed and dedicated and doing great work. That, that is something that I will always remember fondly and, and be very proud about, to be honest. But to my experience really recently has been more at the strategic levels of leadership and it was hard to go past being Chief of Air Force. 4:51 That was a an opportunity as well to shape an organization that somewhat an organization that I feel very passionately about that I'm proud to be part of and and that's something that I will always remember that experience as well and. 5:02 Speaker 3 And from my memory, you were Co 75 Squadron, weren't you? That's right. A very storied, very famous fighter squadron, infamously, you know, with its laurels in in New Guinea in the Second World War, a very famous squadron that protected Port Moresby. 5:18 So that that didn't. I'm in a story, you see. So I, I wax lyrical about this stuff. Yeah, Yeah. There's the kind of this commanding A squadron, then there's commanding that squadron, you know? 5:27 Speaker 1 Well, when I first arrived at 75 Squadron, there were many World War 2 veterans that were still alive and, and we heard their stories first hand and we still have very close connections with their family. 5:36 Speaker 3 Excellent. The the other one. So that's the, the sort of one of the jobs you've done. The other one. I think it gives us an interesting insight to our guests is what I call the road not travelled. Now as I've mentioned to to listeners before, I really wanted to be a Black Hawk helicopter pilot in the army. 5:53 I have a theme for for helicopters. I don't know what it is. I'm just, I just like them and I'm very lucky that I've, I've had the opportunity to fly in them a few times, but my mathematics skills aren't that great. And I thought I was pretty good until I did some other coordinating things and I'm not as coordinated as I thought I was. 6:11 I, I have flown a Tiger attack helicopter simulator. That was one of the coolest things I've ever done. And yeah, I wasn't that great. Mind you, I didn't have any training. But you know, is there a pathway back? So, you know, you obviously went to university and stayed at university. 6:27 If you hadn't become an academic, was there something you wanted to do or would there have been another career pathway? Was there a sliding doors moment where you I didn't go through the academic door and what it went through? 6:38 Speaker 2 Yeah, there there was actually, and there's a sort of in a, in a, in my family a, a famous video from when I was younger where I've declared very confidently that I'm going to be a reporter for the Channel 7 News. And I did actually do a degree in journalism and when I was finishing my honours thesis, I had a phone call from the Latrobe Valley Express in Gippsland wanting to know where I'd done my an internship, wanting to know whether I would come in and have a chat about a cadet ship. 7:09 So I had to choose, do I finish my honours thesis and continue to learn about all these things that are very interesting to me. It was actually on the balance of power, which is back in vogue now. Wasn't at the time. 7:25 Or would I sort of begin the path of, of becoming a journalist. And I have a lot of respect for journalists and for journalism and the importance of media for, you know, as a fourth estate, for our democracy. 7:40 And I still love the news. But I have to say I'm pretty glad that I stuck with the honours and then stayed at at university doing what I'm doing now. 7:51 Speaker 3 What about you, Rob? If, if Air Force hadn't, you hadn't gone through that door into Air Force, was there? Was there another door that you were considering Another. 7:58 Speaker 1 Partner, can I, can I say as I sit on the panel with two professors that I wish I'd become an academic and a professor so that I, I might carry the conversation a bit better. I, I wouldn't change what I had done through Air Force, but what I, what I would say is, is where it has taken me now is to think differently about the role of the military in our society and what we're trying to achieve it. 8:19 It's more now about how do we preserve our way of life? How do we navigate a difficult world? And, and if you think about it in that context, there's lots of pathways that take you to those sort of work environments. You know, I look back and wish if I knew more about DFAT then I might have thought about a career in, in diplomacy. 8:36 If I knew more about some of the security agencies and the work they do is extraordinary. And so I think all of those pathways take you to an environment where you're genuinely thinking about how Australia might navigate it's future and and that's that's where I want to be. Any of them would have been very enjoyable. 8:54 Speaker 3 Well, well, that's provides me a great segue actually into getting into the sort of part of the conversation we're going to have today and I'm going to go to you first Beck. We hear a lot about this phrase that our strategic environment is deteriorating or we're in some of the most dangerous times since insert epoch here historical reference here or there. 9:17 You know, a lot of people talked about the inter war period or the early Cold War period. I, I, I read something the other day that says this is more equivalent to potentially what the seven, what was it the Seven years war or some European war that they made reference to? But So what is in a day-to-day manner in our region, you know, what is a deteriorating strategic environment actually mean? 9:38 And what are the sort of potential consequences about that kind of phraseology that we're being used by politicians and senior leaders both here in Australia but also around the region and around the world? 9:49 Speaker 2 Yeah. I think it's a really important question that you're raising there about what does it mean for people and how they go about sort of living life day-to-day because sometimes we can be quite high level with the language that we are using. 10:06 You know, we've got these deteriorating strategic circumstances, but how does that actually link in with how it is that people are, are living their day-to-day lives? And I think that this year we've had a really good example. And I know that that Jen Parker was on the podcast last week and she would have been talking quite a bit about maritime security. 10:28 And that's also an area of interest to me. But you know, in, in March this year when people were putting petrol into their cars, they would have been shocked by the, the price, you know, getting up to, to over two $2.50 a leader for petrol. 10:46 So that's a very real and tangible experience that people in Australia would have in, in, in, in the consequences of, of shipping and of sea lines being cut off or or at least blocked due to a conflict not of Australia's making. 11:08 And so I think, you know, you can sort of really ground security in these sorts of examples. One of the things that I worry about is, you know, energy security is not something that is new to us. Like we, we know about issues with stockpiles, but what we, we tend to be quite reactive to crisis. 11:30 So I hope that we don't forget about our energy security priorities once we ride out this particular crisis. So in Australia, you know that that's one example. But regionally, the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz had really tangible impacts on people across Southeast Asia, for example, that rely on on energy supplies for for cooking, for being able to travel to work. 12:00 There are really sort of dire consequences for people in in countries like the Philippines or Thailand, Vietnam, in terms of just about going about day-to-day life. And so it's not just about how we experience these moments of crisis in Australia, but also how that affects the region. 12:21 And it's not just, I mean, the Strait of Hermos is one example, but I think about when you read the, the 2026 National Defense Strategy and it talks about grey zone and it talks about coercion. And again, it's quite abstract and it's quite high level. 12:37 But if you go out into the region like I did earlier this year and and you visit fisherfolk in Zambales, in the Philippines, for example, I mean, they're on the frontline of these grey zone tactics. They are, this is not abstract for these people. 12:54 And it affects coastal communities, it affects people's livelihoods, it affects stability, it affects economic development, which is quite clearly a priority in our region. And that's what underscores regional stability as well. So I think, you know, these are examples of how people's lives can become affected up by these really increasingly pressing and complex and multifaceted security challenges. 13:25 Speaker 3 So Rob, you sit in a slightly different respect to this. You do a lot about responding to this environment. Yeah. And, you know, in the last three years in Australia, there's been sort of no shortage of reviews of, you know, 2 National Defence strategies, a big government reform agenda inside defence. 13:44 You know, the cynics out there will say, well, we're just rearranging the deck chairs. From where you sit, though, like what's sort of driving this reform from insider defence? And, and what is it really that the the organization, particularly USVCDF, what are you trying to achieve in, in response to this sort of environment that Beck has spoken about in terms of helping your organization be restructured to achieve particular outcomes? 14:13 Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I firstly, if I can pick up on what Beck was saying. I think there are there are short term things that happen, short term crises that pop up that we need to be able to respond to. And the Straits of Hormuz is, is hopefully what will be a short term crisis. But we also hope that the war in Europe would be a short term crisis. 14:31 And these things, you know, aren't necessarily short duration, but they are they're they're the crisis things that happen. They're also some trends that we look at today that we think are are occurring over a longer term. And Beck mentioned in her opening remarks about studying the balance of power. 14:48 We we would see a fundamental shift in the balance of power. And that's not a short term thing. That's an enduring thing that will be with us for decades. It's, it's not just about the growth of China or the growth of II or increasing roles for other nations. It's, it's the US choosing a different role for themselves in the world. 15:06 So that's, that's got to be part of the story. It entrenches strategic competition. And the strategic competition is not just between great powers, but all nations now are interrogating more directly their national interest in their relations with other states. 15:21 And so that's different. I, I think the, the nature of competition is comprehensive. So it's, we can't just think about what the impacts of coercion or compellents might be from a military perspective, because we're expecting it to come economically. We're expecting misinformation and disinformation across the board. 15:39 We're expecting that if a, if a nation chooses to express its will and, and we don't agree with it, then, then it's going to be a harder, harder struggle than it has been historically. And then I think the role of international institutions is unfortunately also waning. And we used to look to them as a middle power, as being the great way that we would navigate our, our future, our security and our prosperity in the world. 16:01 Well, they're playing a different role now as well. And so all of that in my mind swirls to, to, to the, the situation that we find ourselves in. Yes, we need to be able to respond to crises and we think a lot about that. We think a lot about what the flash points might be in our region and how we would respond to those. 16:20 But we also need to think about the long game and and how do we make sure in Australia that we're investing in the capabilities that we need to be able to prevail over that longer term in an environment that is more challenging. And I think the the great advantage of of your recommendations in the defence strategic. 16:37 Speaker 3 Well, Steven and Sir Angus is well, I was just hanging around in the background. 16:41 Speaker 1 They were, they were grateful for you drafting it. But but this this revisit rate of two years, we we get an opportunity to kind of look at the strategic environment, make sure that we we got our estimates right and we can adjust to anything that we do that we didn't get right. That we can look at the way we are choosing to respond and the investments that we're prioritizing to deal with that strategic environment. 17:03 We can look at whether we're delivering to our plan and how we might need to make adjustments. All of those things come together in in a two year cycle now for us to make sure that we are responding appropriately to a different environment. 17:14 Speaker 3 Pull on that thread for a second. I mean, how's that two year cycle going? I mean, when that came out as a recommendation that Sir Angus Houston and Stephen Smith made, there was various commentaries about that's too fast. That's not, you know, that you can't sort of have enough time to adjust or the organization doesn't sort of work that way. 17:35 Has that sort of been, we're up to the second National Defense strategy now, Is that kind of process from your point of view embedded and do you find that a useful kind of framework and does it give you a proper tempo of operating against? 17:48 Speaker 1 If you think back to the environment in 2024, when, when the 2024 National Defence Strategy was released, we, we did have a war in Europe, but we had not contemplated that there would be an, a global energy crisis as a result of conflict in the Middle East. 18:04 And, and we hadn't contemplated the role that the United States would play in the international world order. So, so I think the two year cycle to, to, to take a pulse on the strategic environment and make sure that we're assessing it correctly works well. 18:20 It enforces a discipline on the department. So we, it wouldn't surprise you to know that we are already thinking about how we plan for and execute the 2028 National Defence Strategy and the investment program that goes with it. I think 1 criticism from the, well, it wasn't a criticism, it was an observation of 2026 is it is that it didn't feel like there was a fundamental shift. 18:43 Well, it, well, it shouldn't feel like there's a fundamental shift. It should feel like that we're trimming around the margins rather than making fundamental shifts because the environment doesn't shift that fundamentally in two years time. And so I think it it brings in a discipline and makes sure that we're on the right track and and there, but it doesn't necessarily Dr. fundamental change every two years. 19:04 Speaker 2 Can I add to that from an outsider perspective and apologies if this is going to sound quite academic, but as, as somebody who looks quite closely at language and, and the role that language plays in, in foreign policy and defence policy, agree with you that, you know, that could, it could look like there hasn't been, you know, these big fundamental shifts over 2 years. 19:28 But what struck me from reading the 2024 version of the National Defence strategy to 2026 was that there was quite and some interesting shifts in, in how we're talking about order and how we're talking about the region. 19:44 And actually over that two year period, the thinking that's coming out of I think the national security community about what international order looks like now seems seems to have changed. You know, one of the the phrases in the 2026 National Defense strategy is this idea of the rules based order being in transition. 20:06 And we're trying to describe this interregnum in in international order, trying to grapple with what? What actually? Where we're dealing with when it comes to the international environment. And so reading it from the sort of a language perspective and noting that we talk about rules and norms now a bit more than talking about a rules based order. 20:31 And we're talking much more about balance of power politics. That our thinking about the international environment has changed from 2024 to 2026 in in ways that are really, I think, interesting and consequential for Australia and its position in the world. 20:53 Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. And it gives rise, you know, when we talk about how we respond to that change to, to self-reliance, that wasn't a term that was used a lot in 2024. Resilience and self-reliance was there, but not prominently, and it is far more prominent in 2026, and that is the response to what we assess as as a change in our strategic environment. 21:15 Speaker 3 And of course, Hugh Jeffrey, the deputy secretary for SP. And I would be really happy, Beck, that you use Interregnum. 21:21 Speaker 2 It's given some. 21:23 Speaker 3 Really great speeches. I have to say shout out to Hugh where that's been kind of a centrepiece about finding a way to explain that transition moment that that we're in, because we don't know what it's going to look like out the other side. And you know, only yesterday I was up at Parliament House for an anniversary with the Ukrainian ambassador and and his team about in the independence of Ukraine. 21:45 And the Deputy Prime Minister, you know, spoke about the very things you were just talking about, about that. How do we preserve what we can of the rules based global order that adjust to the kind of changing world that we live in, which is which is really topical. And and as you said, it reminds us that this conflict in Ukraine is still ongoing. 22:01 And now we've added other events like like the energy crisis in the in the war in the Middle East. I want to extrapolate out of that and look at some reform stuff, particularly I'll start with Europe on the Defence Delivery Agency. One of the things I've heard a few times is are we just going back to DMO 2 point O? 22:24 Excuse me, Can you give us a sort of a sense from where you sit as VCDF? What's different this time and what's giving you confidence that this kind of new model and new approach? And obviously in your area you have a new two star working on joint integrated capability development. 22:43 You've got a bit of a restructure there and a bit of a changing structure and focus between your your group and area and new defence delivery agency. So from where you said, what's sort of the big things that are new to you and why do you think this is a is, is a sort of a good set and pathway going forward that it's not back to where we were in the DMO days? 23:02 Speaker 1 Yeah. So when, and I think you can draw parallels to our structure that we, that we are putting in place today and the, the, the structure that we had with Capability Development Group and the DMO, it looks more like that than it does like 1 defence organizational structure and accountabilities. 23:19 But the big difference, which if you go back and spoke to CEOs of Dmos, they would say that always frustrated them is that the National Armours Director who will lead the Defence Delivery Agency will be accountable for their own budget and will have a Direct Line of reporting to ministers. 23:36 And, and that corrects in the minds of CE OS DMO past. It's something that always undermined their ability to focus on delivery and make sure that they are delivering capability efficiently. That's the big change now. I, I think in much the same way that we, that we find it helpful every two years to look at our strategy. 23:55 There's, there, there would be an organizational science that says that it's, it's healthy every 10 or 15 years or so to look at the productivity of your organization and, and just check that you're structured well. And I think if in 2025 the authors of of 1 Defence came back and, and looked at the way defence was performing, that they would have seen that we had deviated from what their vision was around accountabilities, around business processes, around productivity of our organization. 24:24 And we'd settled at an equilibrium that was not at all productive. Now, that's not to say that going back to the way that one defence said that we should structure ourselves as an as an organization was the right fix. We've gone back further back to the model of a that was more similar to the capability Development Group and DMO model as, as the way of fixing what had been what, what where we settled as a, as a relatively unproductive equilibrium. 24:51 And it's a far stronger message around accountabilities. And we mentioned the accountabilities of the national Armament Director in delivering defence capability. Well, the accountabilities around developing requirements for defence capability in the five war fighting domains have been centralized now under VCDF group in the same way they were previously under the Chief of Capability Development Group. 25:13 And in my mind, what that does is make sure that our requirements are more tightly coupled to our force design. And, and so when for example, in force design, we think about an integrated problem that that I can achieve, for example, a maritime strike with a little bit of air and a little bit of land and a little bit of space rather than just relying on naval capabilities, then I can write my requirements to achieve those outcomes. 25:38 And and so that's a that is more tightly coupled. The new 2 star that I have in my organization is responsible for developing requirements across those five war fighting domains and that absorbs those roles that were previously done in service headquarters. 25:54 The other thing that we've done is that we have rather than have head of force integration, the previous two star role in Vice Chief of Development Group, Defence Force Group, we have created a head of capability coordination who effectively sits horizontally across our organization. 26:12 And if you think about this as a value chain manages everything from force design through to requirements definition and a gate to decision. So we've got someone who is thinking about productivity, about integration, about making our force design and develop capability development process as efficient as possible. 26:32 And and that in it's early days, it's only been a few months, but in it's early days it's working very well in my mind. 26:40 Speaker 3 So Becky, you're going to now give us a history of DMO right? So but for listeners, I had a bit of a joke that's clearly not Becks area of expertise, but I was texting her yesterday going guess what I'm going to ask you, can we? 26:51 Speaker 2 Please go back to discourse analysis. 26:54 Speaker 3 Well, what I'm going to do, so Robbie gone into a fair bit of detail there on understanding internal defense reform, which is a real government objective. But National Defence, the sort of concept that drives the National Defence strategy is actually a whole of government, whole of nation from where you sit. 27:10 And you've been observing pretty closely what the government's done over the last three or four years in responding to this sort of what, what are the big reforms you see maybe over at DFAT or across broader parts of government that seem to kind of mesh with what Rob's talking about here about the, you know, the down in the weeds, you know, redesigning parts of the Defence department. 27:29 What sort of observing, what are the things that you're picking up on that are that are different as a result of this kind of new National Defence approach? 27:36 Speaker 2 Well, I actually wanted to ask a bit more about what are some of the ongoing challenges with integration because the the Defence strategic review, obviously Peter had a big role to play in it. I mean it, it really does lay out the importance of the, the whole of government approach to thinking about defence, which I think is a really remarkable document because as we've been talking about, contemporary security challenges are integrated. 28:08 They're coming from all different angles. It's not just they're not just created by militaries, they're they're created by non state actors. We have the effects of climate change and environment, we have health pandemics, we have all sorts of things that are making security a lot more complex. 28:29 And so that does demand this this whole of government approach. And I think that there from where I sit as an academic, I think there are some positive signs in terms of trying to understand these contemporary security challenges holistically and through a comprehensive lens. 28:49 But I would say, and I know that this is probably something that that, you know, it comes up every now and again. I, I would like to see a national security strategy, I think, and I would, would love to get your view on this too. 29:04 Good luck. Can I answer that for you, Rob? No comment. I know it's, it's a bit of a no go zone, but I mean, one of the, the complexities that, that we, that we see is you have the, the DSR talking about whole of government and then you have the 2024 National Defense Strategy. 29:25 And the first couple of chapters talks about a whole of government strategy. And then it talks about the ADF. And it can't really do a lot of the whole of government stuff because that's not the remit of the 2024 National Defence Strategy. 29:41 And so you, you kind of lose that whole of government momentum when you get into the nitty gritty of, of how that the ADF is going to support Australia's defence. So I'm still of the opinion that it would be good. I mean, I also would like to see a maritime security strategy maybe. 30:01 Speaker 3 There's too. 30:01 Speaker 2 Many strategies that I'm not. 30:03 Speaker 3 That we have our own wheelbarrows. 30:04 Speaker 2 To push on the podcast, it's including, it's like the maritime. The way that I see it, what interests me about the maritime is that it's like a laboratory for thinking about the complexity of these issues. Because the maritime domain, it's not just about nuclear powered submarines. 30:20 It's also about ecosystems. It's also about, you know, blue crime. It's about a whole range of different things that that come together. And so when thinking about a sort of comprehensive, A holistic approach of national security, maritime security, there's more than 20 agencies in Australia that deal with maritime security adjacent issues and trying to get those all working on the same page can be difficult at times. 30:51 And so I think I see some good signs in terms of integration and I think having the whole of government concept as a guiding light is really useful. But I do wonder about whether or not we need this is adding another one, whether we need a new foreign policy white paper or something like that. 31:14 Because what the last three years, as you mentioned before, the documents that are coming out are very defense focused. So I wonder whether we could be doing more to tie these different parts together. 31:29 Speaker 3 That could be just because we're academics and we love governments to put papers out so we can talk about them and it gives us extra things to do, right? 31:35 Speaker 2 Well, I mean, that makes me sound very self-serving. 31:39 Speaker 1 Let me let me respond though, Pete. I, I mean, we're a week out of PIF, right? And, and last week we had the Prime Minister and Minister for Defence industry in the Southwest Pacific talking about some really important initiatives for security, maritime security in the, in our Pacific neighborhood. 31:56 And, and they were really, these are, are Constabulary issues around transnational crime. But they were talking about how they might use intelligence agencies, how they might use the Australian Border Force, how the Australian Defence Force might contribute. So there is this, this, this kind of integration effort that happens to deal with those sorts of issues in our region. 32:14 I can tell you that our government at cabinet think a lot about national resilience. They think a lot about economic security and, and they think about, of course, our, our national security. And in their minds, all of those things are integrated and, and, and below them, the secretaries are supporting those efforts and having the same conversation. 32:32 So I, I think there is a point of integration that in my mind why it's so important to, to be transparent about our National Defence strategies because that's what we expect of other nations. That's we see that as being critical to stability to, to preserving a balance of power. 32:47 And so there is a real imperative for us to be publishing a, a National Defence strategy and be transparent about that. That's not to say that other all elements of statecraft don't need to be integrated in a clever way across government and and the absence of a national security strategy doesn't mean that that's not happening. 33:06 Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean this, this type of conversation always makes me think of a of one that I had with the the late great Alan Kinjaw. And he said, you know, every generation of scholars and intelligence analysis people and stuff. He said they like to say, but it's different this time. 33:23 And the world's more complex, he said, but I keep walking around going. But this time it really is. And because of the the nature of the kind of environment that you both described, Rob, to just get a little bit down in the weeds again with you and what we were talking about before in those reforms around the Defence Delivery Agency in the new capability areas. 33:42 And of course, that is the bulk of of the money that flows through defense. Can you also give us a little bit of a sense about how does the reforms that are happening change the authority of the service chiefs? You know, and you've obviously come out of being a service chief before you've gone into this role. 33:59 And how does that change that relationship between the service based capability leads and and you as the integrated force capability authority? So can you kind of explain to the listeners how the kind of dynamics of this is is changing a bit? 34:13 Speaker 1 We're still in a in a process of change. And so I don't think it's completely settled yet Peter, but I in terms of a capability development function, I will still look to service Chase to be able to give me deep expertise and and they will still be responsible for example, for developing domain specific concepts that we will use in our in our force design process. 34:34 And so the, the expertise will continue to reside in the services and when my organization builds requirements for the, the capabilities that they need, we'll be relying on them to provide advice around the, the effects that they need. We'll be relying upon them to, to be thinking about how they transition these capabilities in the service and, and dealing with all of those fundamental inputs to capabilities. 34:57 So they a strong role, but just not accountable for defining the requirements of capabilities as they come forward. When it goes to delivery, then then there will still be an ongoing conversation between the delivery agency and service chiefs about how they subsequently transition capabilities into service. 35:15 And when capabilities are in service, then it is the, the service chief who owns the budget and they, they're looking then to the national armours director to be providing sustainment for those capabilities as a service, which which is to say that the nature of their roles will change. 35:32 But the idea that they're disconnected from the capability development, delivery and, and operation process is not true. And, and so again, you, what we've done effectively is change where the, the points of accountability are, where the scenes might be in our value chain. 35:49 But at each one of those scenes, the more important thing is, is not how you transact it through some sort of contractual arrangement. It's, it's how you, how you manage that relationship and that the sort of personal relationships become really important. And so that's, that's one of the things that was emphasized in One Defence in 2014. 36:07 It's absolutely still the case today. There are different the the seams and boundaries in our organization have shifted, but the the one Defence culture, the idea that we must work together to a common, common mission, a common sense of purpose, remains the same. 36:23 Speaker 3 Beck, I'm going to throw something related but different to you. So Rob's talking about structures and processes and ways defense are going to buy capability and thus spend taxpayers money. And the bulk we know of the defense budget goes into the capability sustainment sort of area as well as people really simply are we spending enough money on defense and should we be spending three percent, 5%? 36:43 What's the best way to calculate it? An easy question for you, Beck. 36:48 Speaker 2 No, this is one of those questions where it's like the rubber hits the road on this question. I don't think we are spending enough on defence. And I surprised myself because, you know, I used to think of myself as a bit of a pacifist and a bit of a sceptic actually on things like defence spending and capabilities. 37:06 But the more that the strategic scenario deteriorates according to our National Defence strategies, the more I'm convinced that we as a country are, are not spending enough on defence. But actually the bigger problem is we're not spending enough on international generally. 37:24 So it's not just defence that that matters for Australia's security, it's things like DFAT and and our diplomats, the people who go out and represent Australia's interests on the global stage. It's also to do with development. 37:40 I, I fear that Australia's sort of Australia comparatively has held the line on development when other countries have been cutting their, their development programs, which is good to see. 37:55 But if, you know, there are countries that are no longer providing programs in the region, you know, that that deal with things like human rights or civil liberties or basic things around healthcare or food security or water or whatever, then you know, other actors are going to come in to fill that vacuum. 38:15 So I think, you know, it's, it's not the spending question is not just about defence capabilities, it is also about the role that defence plays within a broader sort of suite of foreign and, and defence policies. 38:35 And, and it's, I think it's hard to explain to the Australian people why things like diplomacy matters. I don't know that DFAT has a big constituency among Australian voters that this is really important. 38:50 I think it is a little bit easier to make the case on defence terms and it's even harder to make a case in terms of, of development. But these three areas really work together. As we've been discussing, they are into, they should be integrated within a, in a whole of government approach to regional security. 39:11 So across the board I, I would like to see more on international spending, but again, we are a middle sized country and it is really easy for academics like me to sit in my little ivory tower and say, oh, we're not doing enough, we need to do more, more, more, more, more. 39:29 So I'm conscious of that. But I also think making that case to the Australian people about why the our international policy settings is so important to our everyday lives, to the way that we live, is just growing more and more important. 39:46 Speaker 3 Yeah, I, I have to say, in the last couple of jobs that I've had, I've put a challenge down to my staff who've worked for me. If you want to write a policy paper and recommend the government that they do something or buy something, you got to explain where the money's coming from, where the cuts are going to be made, or what's the justification for increasing taxes or redistributing government spending. 40:05 So because it's really easy to go, oh, I think this is a great idea and you should spend money from that, but it's going to come from somewhere. That's right. And it's actually a. You get into really interesting debates and discussions then with think people and academics about, well, when you're framing in that way, how you have to reconsider and look closely at okay, spend what are the tradeoffs and what are the tradeoffs either within defense or what are the tradeoffs within within cabinet basically that we need to to really consider and. 40:32 Speaker 2 Very conscious of that. I'm glad that I'm not working as one of your staff. But I would also say that when you're asking people about 3 percent, 5%, I mean, these figures are pretty arbitrary and they can change depending on what the GDP is. 40:47 And so really the question always has to be, are we spending enough in order to be able to support our objectives and that that can shift depending on our economic circumstances. 41:02 Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that's Andrew Carr and I have written papers on why GDP of defence spending is not great. I'll tell you what, when we first did that, Dennis Richardson was Secretary of Defence. Dennis didn't take too kindly to Andrew and I's paper because it didn't mean he's objecting to the secretary to get more money into his department at the particular time. 41:22 But yeah, people like to throw those around for, I think international comparisons, but you know, Japan doubling their GDP of defence spending means something different when you're third largest economy in the world versus the 13th largest economy in the world, right? And I, I think it's relative to what do we want our Defence Force to do, what are the capabilities we need to execute that and how much that's going to cost rather than what percentage of the, you know, the whole economy. 41:47 I, I actually think just personally, if you're going to look at it more closely, what is the, what is the percentage of government Commonwealth outlays on defence compared to other parts of how the government spends money? That's a better way of looking at priorities. I mean, GDP is just so arbitrary. But I'm also, I'm going to add 1 little extra thing your international approach to diplomacy and holistic spending. 42:10 Beck My My favorite example of rubber hitting the road in communities is talking to the 11 year old in my household about why Hudson Young might be leaving the Canberra Raiders and going to the Chiefs of Tax. 42:21 Speaker 2 For deal. 42:23 Speaker 3 Right, and why that's problematic to his 'cause he's a massive Raiders supporter. And I said and what the intersection that is, well, why there's an international relations element to why there's APNG, you know, rugby league team funded by the Australian government. And what a great piece of sports diplomacy, what a great piece of, you know, bonding of communities in our region across sport. 42:44 But it has an international dimension to it and it has a response to the sort of global strategic environment. You know, he wasn't really much interested in that. He was still really focused on what Hudson Young is going to do next year. He's his favorite player. 42:56 Speaker 2 Whatever it takes to get the next generation interested in international politics, say Asia Pacific. That's great, yeah. 43:06 Speaker 3 I want to talk a little bit more about the National Defence strategy. Rob, you mentioned, you know, self-reliance and I and I want to unpack that a little bit more in a in a second. But from your perspective, when you look at the the 2024 to 2026 documents, is it besides the self-reliance that you mentioned, is there anything else that sort of stands out for you as a sort of a bit of guiding direction for, for what you need to do in your area or for defence more importantly? 43:35 Speaker 1 Yeah. So I think self-reliance is the area where you've seen the greatest changes in our investment priorities. So, so for example, when we think about self-reliance in, we've changed the priorities of delivering integrated area missile defence. So focus more on getting the sort of medium range surface to air missiles that are capable of shooting incoming rockets down. 43:53 And so, so that's a, that's an example, but there's also when we think about self-reliance, that's, that's why we're investing so heavily in, in building ships and submarines. That's why we're investing so heavily in guided weapons and explosive ordnance. That's why we're thinking about fuel resilience and, and building a logistics network. 44:12 It's, it's so that we can project and sustain combat power without having to rely on our allies. Now, it's really important to understand that self-reliance is not independence from an alliance construct. And, and so, and it's not even on the same scale in, in some respects, self-reliance and, and an alliance. 44:33 The strength of our alliance with the United States are mutually reinforcing to the extent that the US is looking to us to invest more and become stronger and, and therefore strengthen our self-reliance and contribute better to collective security through an alliance construct. They're mutually reinforcing. 44:49 And of course, being an alliance construct means that we have access to, to information, we have access to services such as satellite based services, we've got access to technologies and, and capabilities that we would never have. And, and therefore the alliance construct is actually positively contributing to self-reliance in its own way. 45:08 So I, I think they're mutually reinforcing ideas now that there would come a point where, you know, if you're completely self-reliance, then you don't rely on an alliance construct. And, and conversely, if you're totally reliant on that alliance construct, then the alliance becomes meaningless to, to, to certainly the, the other party. 45:27 So, so there's a, there's a sweet spot in, in that relationship. And I think what we're trying to do is find what that optimum balance is. 45:35 Speaker 3 Yeah, I, I did a bit of work on this a number of years ago trying to look at what, what would be the sort of cost of, of not self-reliance, but self-sufficiency and the best I could do at various studies. And I'm no economist and stuff. I sort of landed somewhere around about 8% of GDP on defense. 45:54 Speaker 1 Right. 45:55 Speaker 3 And, and my conclusion was that it would actually make you less secure because you would lose all the benefits of the Five Eyes intelligence network, of the technology transfers of all of those types of things. And, you know, having to build modern combat aircraft in Australia for the first time in a very long time. 46:10 Not yeah, autonomous systems, but actually full man combat systems, how we have to develop all that infrastructure for ourselves. And of course, you look at, you know, Europe and NATO, they they share that amongst themselves. So they're not self-sufficient of any one particular nation in, you know, I look at the F35 aircraft, the, the US is not self-sufficient on the F35 parts come from many of the contributing nations to that, that program. 46:33 So it, it would be a very big lift in money and I'm, I'm not convinced it would buy us anymore sort of security in that sense. 46:41 Speaker 1 Well, I mean, if our, if our objective is a, a balance of power, the idea that we would have a balance of power in our region absent the United States is a bit naive. Even even if we were completely self reliant, that would not give us enough combat mass to deal with all of the circumstances that we think we might confront. 46:58 So I I think the alliance remains a cornerstone of our national security and it's, it's about how we optimize our, our contribution to that alliance. 47:08 Speaker 2 I think if I can, coming from a, a slightly more sceptical kind of position, but pragmatic, look, I agree that the, the alliance has to remain an important cornerstone of Australia's foreign and defence policy because of, you know, decades of decision making that Australian leaders have made around integrating Australia's military and defence capabilities with the United States, which makes it out of, out of pragmatic level very difficult to then roll that back and much more expensive. 47:44 So again, we come back to trade-offs, right? We don't want to spend 8% on GDP on defence capabilities and we don't even really know how much it would cost. If you were wanting to really try and think about this, think through what it would mean to roll back the the alliance with the United States. 48:04 So from a pragmatic perspective, it's good to try to diversify our relationships with other countries in the region. It is good to maintain our independence and our agency in our foreign policy and the decisions that we make. 48:23 And that doesn't have to mean that we are purely self reliant without the alliance. So that's the the message in the story that we need to tell. And I think we, we do tell that story quite well in the region that while Australia is, is quite close to the US, not just militarily, but in all elements of the alliance, that Australia remains an an independent actor. 48:52 And when we talk about agency, we're talking about Australia's ability to work with other countries in the region to shape the environment so that it isn't an environment where big powers can do whatever they want. It's an environment where middle powers, secondary powers, smaller powers are able to create and maintain institutions and rules and norms and law that serve their their interests and, and hopefully means that bigger powers can't just bully smaller powers. 49:25 So that's when we get back to these issues of whether the rules based order is dead or, you know, deteriorating. I mean, yes, there are issues and yes, we need to be very aware and and conscious of the the different forces that are damaging some of the core pillars, the architecture of our international order. 49:47 But at the same time we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and just say, well, rules based order is dead because we need that and other countries in the region need an order that is prefaced on rules and norms and laws. 50:04 And I think Australia will continue to work with other countries to make sure that that that scaffolding environment exists because it works in our interests. 50:17 Speaker 1 I completely agree, but I don't think there and or I mean sorry either or there and outcomes that we seek and that's precisely what the National Defence Strategy points us towards. 50:28 Speaker 3 Yeah, so I mean the NDS language talks about a, a network of trusted regional partnerships. I'm I'm going to throw one at you here, Beck. In July last year, a, a colleague of ours, Eli Ratner, the former US assistant secretary for Defence for Indo Pacific in the Biden administration, he'd come out of office and, and Eli wrote a piece in in foreign affairs that basically said pretty much arguing for an, for an Asian NATO. 50:58 You know, is that something you, you, you have, you have some views that you you put out there about, about that. Obviously allies and partners are central. But so where's the sort of balance between on one end of the extreme are kind of a NATO in Asia versus sort of, you know, I suppose relationships with other countries that when the rubber hits the road are kind of a bit meaningless, you know, if there's not some type of architecture or, or institutionalization around there. 51:23 So I suppose where I'll swing back to, first of all is, is it feasible for an Asian NATO? And if if not that, what should we as Australia be looking at to build in that region with our partnerships? 51:35 Speaker 2 I think the Asian NATO idea is actually like it. It makes it more difficult for Australia to kind of engage with some of our neighbors in, in Asia and the Pacific. 51:51 I I know that you know, Peter, that I came out quite strongly. 51:55 Speaker 3 It was a bit of a time. It was a I'll sort of teeing that up on there for you to cut it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get it out of the park. 52:00 Speaker 2 Yeah. So for those of you who are interested, you know, follow a count, you can read my views in Lowy, lowy interpreter on that issue. Yeah. Look, I, I, I don't agree with the idea that Australia, I mean, the, they talk about it in terms of the core 4, you know, what you're talking about, Australia, the United States, Japan and the Philippines as you know, creating this kind of group or an alliance or some sort of collective defence pact. 52:32 And Asian NATO is kind of shorthand for, for that. And that would be quiet in my view, you know, taking the relationships between those countries into a more formal and institutionalised direction, which kind of works against the history in Asia. 52:49 Like bilateral treaties have worked. There have been examples of institutions in Asia that have not worked. I mean, SETO is, is, is a good example. So it's not just sort of transplanting what goes on in Europe in Asia is probably an awkward analogy there. 53:09 But even putting aside the the NATO language, my argument was this is probably not the time for a former US official to be talking about the idea of an Asian NATO in Asia at the moment, given the what the United States is is doing, you know, treating our allies as rivals in the economic sphere, for example. 53:36 I mean, my fear, and this again probably comes from a a bit of a sceptical background, is that we talk about the deterioration of the strategic environment and, and it's down to the strategic competition between the US and China. 53:52 But is there just a bigger problem if the US is not competing with China in Asia? And there are some examples of where, you know, the United States remains committed and invested in defence cooperation in Asia under the Trump administration. 54:11 But there are also some worrying trends that the White House is distracted by other areas and that it has been, you know, using economic coercion tools towards allies not just in Asia but globally. 54:32 And so these I think raised some concerns about, and this is where we get back to these challenges about the alliance being central to Australia. Like we need to keep them involved in the region. We need to keep them present. 54:48 At the same time, how do we hedge against a potential future where the US is actually less interested in Asia and in China? I mean, I'm not I, I, I'm not going to put it past Donald Trump to try to create a kind of deal with Xi Jinping, for example, that may not in fact work in our interests in Australia. 55:12 I'm not saying that's likely to happen, but I wouldn't rule it out at this point. And so these are it's it's it's very unpredictable. And there's also this question, it goes back to time scales. What you were talking about before, Rob, about, you know, the immediate and the long term. 55:29 And the problem we have with the United States at the moment is we don't know what is just we have to deal with for the next couple of years and what is a long term change in our most important ally. So I think pragmatically, you hold the line and you just, you know, your hope that things will return to some sense of normalcy with the United States. 55:55 But, and I think that's a reasonable and pragmatic thing to do, but I do think that it is really difficult to reimagine AUS. That's not like the one that we want it to be. 56:11 And I don't, I don't, yeah, I don't have any answers for for how we go about thinking through that. But just but just noting that that strategic imagination that some of us talk about is really hard. 56:28 Speaker 3 On on an allies and partners point of view, Robert, I might throw an Air Force. When you were former Chief of Air Force, you ran some pitch black exercises. What are the, and you know, for the viewers out there, pitch black is a very large Air Force exercise, multilateral exercise. What what are the benefits, though, of engaging in those types of things for the ADFI mean you'll be able to give us a bigger sense of the, the numbers of nations and the the types of things that happen in pitch pitch black. 56:54 Like they're great when you look at it from the outside, but what's the kind of real core benefit you think that we extract as a military and then with our partnership relationships? 57:02 Speaker 1 That's a really good question and it's so for a start, it's fantastic training. And, and that's an obvious point, right? You get together and lots of aircraft. The, the quality of the training that we're able to for our own air crew and for the air crews of visiting nations. It's rare to be able to, to, to, to build an activity of that scale and scope, do it in a way that where everyone feels comfortable about risk and, and, and be able to get some outcomes that are really productive. 57:27 But actually the thing that that is the most important outcome is that people get to know each other well. And I think when chief of Air Force was sitting down with the Thai Chief of Air Force, they had first met 19 years ago and on a similar exercise activity. 57:44 And, and so there's this, you know, if you can build those relationships early and get these constant, constant interactions through a career, then then that, that can be a really productive way of helping to, to transact difficult problems. I remember when I was on CDSS, we went, I went up to PNG. 58:02 It was my first visit to Port Moresby. And so it was on the first night sweating and, and we went and were hosted by the, the PNGCDF and, and all of the senior staff. And when they walked into the mess, the army people on my course all went up and, and bro hugged them. 58:20 They, they had known them since they were cadets. They were classmates at RMC and, and they had been working together for 25 years after they had served together as cadets. And the relationship between them was incredibly strong. That's, that's the relationship that we, that we strive to build with all nations in our region. 58:39 It's, it's more difficult, I think for air, but, but things like Pitch Black give us an opportunity. And in particular there's a facility now that that defence is using, I think Darwin, where all of the participants of Pitch Black were accommodated and they, they were fed and, and watered in the same place. 58:57 And, and so the interactions between individuals at all ranked levels were really strong. And, and that's the great benefit of Pitch Black. 59:08 Speaker 3 We're getting towards the the end of our end of our time. I just want to very quickly ask you about the concept of risk you just spoke about there, Rob. I mean, Beck, you've described the Australian defence culture as risk adverse before in the past in some of the things that you've written. 59:25 Have I? 59:27 Speaker 2 All right. 59:28 Speaker 3 Cool. And we sort of, you know, a lot of the language now is, is moving at speed and failing fast, you know. So bureaucracies sort of are, are they set up from where you sit as someone who, who looks at the international organisations and different structures, is that an easy thing culturally for sort of bureaucracies? 59:46 Is that a realistic goal for us to be setting our defence department? 59:50 Speaker 2 To be less risk, avert. 59:51 Speaker 3 To be more risk, avert and move at speed well. 59:54 Speaker 2 I I think I would love to hear Rob's insight. 59:59 Speaker 3 I'm going to go to hear message. 1:00:02 Speaker 2 I want to, I want to make a joke about, you know, we, we work in universities, they their own slow bureaucratic processes there. But I did go to a defence briefing yesterday where the 1st 10 minutes was on probity. So I'm not sure that we will be, you know, getting a, a, a, a, a defence that's not going to be conscious of, of risk. 1:00:23 I think it's an, it's an interesting question. I think when I talk, when I think about risk aversion, and it's not just defence, I think it's across government, it's about things like what can, can and can't be communicated to the public. 1:00:40 I think that there's a lot of risk aversion about public messaging and, and, and certainly in the, in the work that I do with, with DFAT, it seems to me like there's a lot of fear of losing control of a message. 1:00:59 And that's a reasonable fear, I think. But the question is, how do you do the transparency? How do you do the, the good strategic communications that's engaging and the people want to watch while also being able to stay on on the right side of, of, of, of not, not losing control of, of the message? 1:01:22 So, yeah, I'm not sure I've, I've created a very good answer for you there. I think it's really one for the, the people who are inside the institution. And how I mean from your perspective, Rob, how hard is it to create the kind of change that you've been talking about? 1:01:44 Speaker 3 Yeah, well, you took my question right out of. 1:01:45 Speaker 2 My mouth. Sorry. 1:01:47 Speaker 3 She could replace me actually, you know. 1:01:49 Speaker 1 I take that helicopter view that you had wished for Pete, and look at what has happened since 2024. The National Defence Strategy in our organization, you know, we have, we are trying to build the most complex machine known to humankind here in Australia. 1:02:07 From a start. We're we're trying to introduce the general purpose frigate in record time. In five years we we hope to be to have them in service and and then rapidly building them here in Australia. We have taken army and pivoted from a force that was thinking about counterinsurgency in the Middle East and it is now a littoral force. 1:02:26 It's for all but waiting for the boats that the boats to arrive. You know, we've got weapons that have been accelerated onto our platforms. Army now has fired long range weapons. Air Force has new weapons in service as does Navy. And so I in my mind, we, we have adapted rapidly as an organization in response to the National Defence Strategy. 1:02:47 And there is risk across all of that. And, and we have been able to embrace that risk and, and prevail, which I think is a that's a really positive story. When I think about our capital investment program, we have over programmed that to the June of 20%. 1:03:02 That's, that's risk. When we look at our sustainment of our, we, we, we've got challenges with old platforms that we're dealing with everyday to make sure that we're achieving our preparedness requirements. That's embracing risk. When we look at workforce, we've turned around from what was really an existential crisis two or three years ago to now a situation where the headline number is healthy. 1:03:25 We are we are at our workforce strength and above our budget of workforce strength. We still have a lot of risk in our workforce when it comes to specific must rings and specific experience levels that we must address. But but we have been able to engage in that risk. So I think the idea that that defence is not able to engage and, and manage risk in, in my mind, that's our day-to-day business and, and we are showing that we can do that. 1:03:49 Well, I, I think what you're asking though, is on an individual project level, do we embrace risk when it's a widget that or a great idea or, or something new and, and can it display something that we've already got in service? And that's a more challenging discussion. 1:04:06 First thing I, when I was Chief of Air Force, you know, we were bringing Ghostbed into service or, or through its development cycle and, and I had people in my organization that were briefing me and saying we're still going to fail fast. At the point in which government had decided that it was investing now a billion dollars in the capability. 1:04:25 The idea that that's still a fail fast program is again a bit a bit naive. In fact, if you are talking about failing fast, then that's got to happen very early in an innovation cycle. And, and so you've got to think really early about how you commercialize, how you industrialize, how you, how you bring it into service. 1:04:44 And, and so that's one of the things that we have, in fact, ASCA has focused on a lot is early in an innovation cycle, assume it's going to be successful and then create the conditions to bring it into operational service. And that's, that's a really important aspect of failing. 1:04:59 Failing fast means planning early for it's successful for a successful outcome. And then if it's not going to work, then cut it away before you've made too much commitment to it. If I can say one more thing that is, you know, I talked about over programming, we are, we are fully subscribed when it comes to our defence budget. 1:05:19 So if you have a new idea, then then the challenge is not one of risk aversion bringing it into service. I, I think, I think we're open to that idea. It's working out what you don't do. It's, it's working out where the offsets lie. And that is a challenging conversation. So that that's how I would characterize. 1:05:36 Speaker 3 Yeah, look, and and I I think you made some excellent points there, Rob. Sometimes we don't reflect enough and give credit where credit's due. You know, the social media algorithm, which is somewhat reflective of broader algorithms in society are, you know, they're more centred on rage bait than they are on celebrating success. 1:05:53 So I think it's, it's really poignant. Yeah. To to remind us of what has changed. There's always more work to be done, but you've also got to be able to identify when positive things have happened. Now I'm a fan of insiders on the ABC and so their guests always get to give a final thought and an observation. 1:06:10 So I'm going to come to you in a second. I'm, I'm going to put one out there. My observation that is if Hudson Young goes to the PNG chiefs, that 11 year old will personally hold the foreign minister, Mindy Mindef and the Prime Minister all responsible for that. 1:06:26 So that'll be that'll be my observation. So you might get some some upset letters going to the to the Prime Minister in his cabinet if Hudson Young moves on. But Beck, do you have a final observation or thought or something you didn't get to say you'd like to express? 1:06:40 Speaker 2 Yes. And I'm so glad that you have this part of the the podcast because I think it is really significant over the last couple of years how Australia has developed these bilateral defence cooperation agreements with a range of partners in the region. 1:06:58 So you know, you've got Indonesia, you've got Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, I think maybe Solomon Islands is coming up. And I think this is kind of, you know, the news comes kind of piece meal. But when you're putting it all together over the last 18 months, this is a significant achievement and Australia is growing its group of of allies and and tightly knit defence partners. 1:07:27 And I think that that demonstrates the investment that Australia has been placing in Asia and the Pacific. And just to go back to that idea, it doesn't need to be the alliance or the region. In fact, it needs to be the alliance and the region. 1:07:44 Speaker 1 Completely great. Do you know what I'm going to take the opportunity because I know you're going to have hundreds of thousands of people tuning in to listen to this podcast, Peter, but among them will be the people that work at ASCAR. And I just want to call out publicly and and, and say how proud I am of the work that they are doing the, the missions that they are delivering and, and really delivering on the mission of accelerating capability, innovative asymmetric capability into the hands of our sailors, soldiers and aviators. 1:08:09 So thank you to all the effort from our. 1:08:11 Speaker 3 Team they're sponsoring the podcast, obviously, but yeah, I've had a a few small opportunities to peek behind the curtain and I've and I've got to say it's an example. I think ask her one of those things we were talking about with the department and the government and the organization is moving fast, is doing things differently and he's getting really big achievements and runs on the board. 1:08:30 So but Robin Beck, thank you so much for joining the podcast today. It's been a really fun conversation and hopefully we'll get to, you know, if we get to a Season 2, Rob, maybe we can we can get you back. 1:08:46 Speaker 1 Thank you for having me. We'll talk to ask her about that. Yeah. Thanks both.