Portfolio — 29 May 2026

Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy used a Question Time answer on 28 May to deliver a comprehensive account of the government's domestic defence manufacturing program, framing it around a single organising claim: Australia is undertaking its largest peacetime increase in defence spending, with three-quarters of the defence budget now directed to domestic industry.

The two headline metrics Conroy anchored to that claim — a 35 percent rise in defence manufacturing output since the government took office and 11 percent employment growth in the sector last year — were the sharpest factual signals in his answer [TA-260528-house-f5e69c44cc32:s150]. Together they function as the government's proof points for the broader argument that the defence budget is being converted into durable industrial capacity rather than imported hardware.

Conroy structured the substance of his answer around a series of discrete investments spanning platforms, geography, and capability type. The most prominent was a $750 million commitment to produce almost 300 Bushmaster protected mobility vehicles in Bendigo — the electorate of the member who asked the question — generating 300 direct jobs over seven years and supporting thousands of supply-chain positions.

Beyond Bendigo, Conroy cited the opening of a Ghost Shark autonomous underwater vehicle factory in Sydney, a missile production facility in South Australia, a second missile facility in the Hunter region, and what he described as the largest ever order of Australian-made drones, alongside investments in directed-energy laser technology. The breadth of the list was deliberate: it maps defence industry activity across New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia, distributing the political and economic dividend of the spending profile across multiple states.

Naval shipbuilding anchored the forward-looking element of the answer. Conroy announced construction of 26 landing craft in Western Australia, projecting 1,100 direct and more than 2,000 indirect jobs, to be followed by the build of upgraded Mogami-class frigates. The combination of landing craft and frigates signals the government's intent to sustain a continuous naval build pipeline in Western Australia rather than treat individual contracts as isolated procurements.

The portfolio's stated approach — building a defence future made in Australia through sustained domestic investment, expanded manufacturing capacity, and high-skill jobs — ran as a consistent thread across every example Conroy cited [TA-260528-house-f5e69c44cc32:s150]. The structure of the answer, moving from aggregate spending figures to sector-level employment data to specific platform investments by location, reflects a communications discipline designed to connect macro-level budget commitments to local economic outcomes.

No opposition position or cross-portfolio connection is recorded in the available records for this session.