Session 3.6e: Update - Structural alignment of the Australian defence manufacturing base to support national Defence space objectives.
Tracks
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| Thursday, November 20, 2025 |
| 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM |
| Sutherland Theatre |
Details
Australia's space industry faces critical challenges in competing internationally, with fragmented companies struggling against large global consortiums while small to medium enterprises (SMEs) encounter substantial barriers to space sector entry. This paper proposes alliance contracting as a transformative framework to address these challenges through structured collaboration, risk sharing, and coordinated capability development.
Alliance contracting, characterized by shared risk/reward mechanisms, joint governance structures, and "no-blame" collaborative cultures, has proven successful in Australian infrastructure projects with over 250 complex projects completed over two decades. Applied to the space industry, this approach enables companies to pool resources for expensive space qualification, share technical risks, and present unified capabilities to meet national requirements, and join global supply chains.
As a case study in how Defence could practically achieve its policy objective of filling the ‘missing middle’ in the national defence industrial base, this paper examines how alliance structures could facilitate SME entry through graduated qualification pathways, from NewSpace applications requiring standard components to high-reliability military systems. A hypothetical alliance example demonstrates potential outcomes including qualification of 50+ electronic components within three years and creation of 500+ high-skilled jobs.
Key policy recommendations, consistent with the developing trajectory of the Defence Industry Development Strategy 2026 (DIDS26), include establishing government-facilitated alliance frameworks, implementing pilot programs across different space segments, and creating standardized contract templates adapted from infrastructure models. Success could transform Australia's broad space industry into a coordinated ecosystem capable of competing globally while building essential sovereign capabilities for national security and economic development.
Speaker
Mr Peter La Franchi
National Defence Director
Tbh Pty Ltd
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Biography
Peter La Franchi is a defence industry strategy specialist with 35 years experience in the Australian and international defence and aerospace sectors. His career includes direct roles in the the commercial development and delivery of DEF799 Phase 1 as country-lead for MDA Corporation of Canada; three years as head of strategy and business development for Airbus Australia Pacific; and three years as head of the Future Business team at Nova Systems.
He joined TBH in May 2025 with his role tasked with using the full spectrum of TBH capabilities to address multiple challenge spaces in the structure of the Australian defence industrial base, and in the assured performance of complex and challenging Defence capability development programs. TBH was created 60 years ago to support the construction of US Navy facilities at North West Cape and more recently supported the transfer to Australia of the Surveillance of Space Telescope.
