Lacking an indigenous design capability, Australian companies are hard-pressed to compete in the international export market. For countries with construction capability, those countries rather use their own industry, or the industry of the nation where the design originates, to manufacture than use Australian industry. For nations lacking the capability to manufacture a design, they tend to prefer that the source of a design also manufacture it. In short, if Australian industry is to compete internationally, it needs to develop the ability to create unique designs to offer potential customers, and/or be able to offer per-unit pricing for designs costing less than other nations.
In relying on orders from the ADF and NZDF, industry is continually either expanding or contracting, due to the relatively small size of the orders and intervals between orders. When an order is placed, resources are expended to acquire the technology and capacity to fill the order, which can take several years. However, once the order is filled, particularly with regards to high values items like ships and aircraft, there can be a gap of several (or many) years before a follow-on order is placed. In the interval, any techniques or lessons learned are largely forgotten, and capacity reduced, making it necessary for additional resources to be expended at the start of each order to rebuild the needed knowledge based and capacity. To avoid the loss of knowledge and capacity, Australian industry needs to be kept running at or near to capacity, preferably by seeking orders from the private and commercial sectors, as well as the international defence market, where these orders are appropriate.