Defence’s role remains paramount in delivering national security, but hybrid threats, cyber security and access to space-based services are not problems for the military alone to solve. At ASPI’s annual defence conference on 4 June, a panel of senior voices from government and industry sectors discussed what it would mean to take a whole-of-nation approach to operationalising the National Defence Strategy (NDS), and the practical problems of translating strategy into national security.
The 2024 NDS envisioned a force for the year 2030 that would be flexible, integrated and responsive across domains. But that can’t be the whole strategy. National preparedness and resilience, panellists agreed, would matter just as much as new hardware or force posture to Australian security.
Australia’s strategy cannot stand still. Uncertainty and change characterise the present outlook, and the next NDS must evolve accordingly. Matt Yannopoulos, acting secretary of Defence, saw the workforce as an element that needed a rethink. While Defence was overcoming recruitment shortfalls, reaching and sustaining the 2030 target of a 69,000-strong Australian Defence Force would require it to successfully compete for technical and scientific talent ‘to operate the platforms and equipment that the NDS has sought’ in a tight labour market, Yannopoulos said.
Fiscal constraints, too, demanded sharper prioritisation if ambition was to translate into real capability. Yannopoulos said:
Budget is a challenge. The cost of running our business, of sustaining our older platforms whilst we equip with the new generation of platforms is challenging for us. We have grown as an institution to get after major new capabilities, whether that’s the AUKUS submarines or the guided weapons and explosive ordinance or even the massive shipbuilding program that we’re undertaking. And we’ve largely done that without lots more humans. So, we are stretching ourselves as an organisation to achieve that.
At the session, speakers underscored that national security was no longer the preserve of Defence alone and that the NDS did not sit in isolation. Hamish Hansford, deputy secretary of cyber and infrastructure security with the Department of Home Affairs, noted that the economy is a target. In modern conflict, adversaries used cyber-attacks and influence operations to threaten critical systems—from ports and power grids to key supply chains—before a shot is fired. New legislative tools such as the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act would help to enhance national security. But effective deterrence and resilience now depended on government and the private sector sharing information rapidly and meaningfully.
Another recurring theme was the challenge of integration—not only in policy, but in culture and operations. Katrina DeMarco, acting deputy secretary of the International and Foreign Investment Group with the Treasury, said that economic security was at the heart of national strategy. This demanded balancing foreign investment with sovereignty, and ensuring supply chain integrity. She referred to Treasury’s new role on the Defence Investment Committee and on the Deputy Secretary’s Committee for National Security as signs of greater whole-of-government coordination and an enhanced culture of collaboration on national security. She further raised the point that ‘budgets are about priorities; they are about choices. They require really careful balancing of the goods and services that the community’s demanding.’ At the same time, ‘the amount of tax that citizens are prepared to pay over time’ required careful examination of trade-offs to balance different equities.
Andrew Downes, vice president of strategy and communications for Thales Australia, argued that government–industry relationships, while strong, needed to evolve for a world of geopolitical competition. He made a case for clearer procurement pathways and longer-term contracts to give companies the confidence to invest in skills and innovation that aligned with national priorities. Downes emphasised that much of our national security relied on subnational governments for workforce and skilling. He highlighted how Western Australia and South Australia were ‘actively looking at how do we do things that this nation’s never done before, which is have whole of nation labour mobility using the depth of the east coast to support the west coast.’
Integration requires more than structural reform. Trust, shared priorities and mechanisms for agile collaboration are essential. Yannopoulos pointed to the need for secure joint planning platforms and new frameworks for cross-sector coordination, especially in responding to hybrid and grey-zone threats. Hansford warned against ‘stovepipe’ thinking by those responsible for Australia’s security to ensure adversaries could not operate seamlessly across domains.
The panel did not frame these reforms as optional. As DeMarco concluded, ‘every Australian has a role to play in national resilience’, from infrastructure operators and researchers to reservists and small to medium enterprises. The success of the next NDS would hinge on the ability to break down silos and operationalise a genuinely whole-of-nation approach.
As Australia prepares for the 2026 NDS, the message from the panel was unambiguous: ambition alone would not meet the spectrum of security challenges ahead. Delivering integrated defence and resilience would require leadership, cultural change, and sustained collaboration among states and territories, and with and within the federal government. The future of Australian national security would hinge on forging and strengthening these connections.
This article has been corrected to amend statements attributed to two speakers. ‘The economy is a target’ is only an indirect quote of Hamish Hansford. Andrew Downes said government–industry partnerships needed to evolve in the context of geopolitical competition.