Introduction

This paper seeks to expand upon the literature on the longstanding concept of self-reliance in Australian defence policymaking in light of the recently adopted doctrine of national defence. This doctrine was born out of the Defence Strategic Review (DSR) of 2023 and later defined in the National Defence Strategy (NDS) of 2024 as ‘a coordinated, whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach that harnesses all arms of national power to defend Australia and advance our interests.’^[1] Historically, the self-reliance concept has co-existed with upholding the Australia-United States (US) alliance, creating tension between what it means for Australia to be self-reliant while relying on the alliance. Nowadays, national defence policy continues to heavily emphasise the importance of the Australia-US alliance while also seeking self-reliance. However, self-reliance is undefined in the DSR and NDS, so we need to look elsewhere to understand what self-reliance means to policymakers in the national defence context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the parliamentary discourse on the topics of national defence and self-reliance since the release of the DSR. Other researchers have already published much material on the self-reliance concept; however, to my knowledge, this is the first work specifically analysing parliamentary discourse since the birth of the national defence doctrine. This discourse is illuminating as it offers the opportunity to explore what policymakers themselves mean by self-reliance in national defence beyond the text of the two policy documents. Specifically, this paper is focused on determining whether national defence redefines self-reliance beyond conceptions in the previous defence doctrine – defence of Australia (DoA) – which emphasised the ability of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to defend Australia independently. Up front, I argue that the national defence doctrine does redefine self-reliance to mean the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF, as this is the main area of focus of parliamentary discourse in the national defence context. However, it specifically excludes any expectation of complete industrial self-reliance independent of allies and partners.

To demonstrate this, this paper is divided as follows. Section I presents a review of the policy and literature on the concept of self-reliance in Australian defence policy. A key outcome of this review is the development of two hypotheses with which to test parliamentary discourse on self-reliance and national defence. The first hypothesis describes self-reliance as the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently, whereas the second shifts focus to the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF. Section II describes the data and research methodology used. As this paper is based on parliamentary discourse, it has relied exclusively on editions of the Hansard at the federal government level since the release of the DSR and has used a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses to identify the most relevant information to test the hypotheses. I also address the key limitations of the research in this section. Section III summarises the findings of the research undertaken. These findings show that domestic industry is the most common theme in discussions on both national defence and self- reliance. Section IV provides a detailed discussion of the findings, including a selection of key Hansard extracts, and contrasts these with the hypotheses to prove this paper’s thesis. Finally, this paper summarises the key findings of this research project and offers some recommendations for further research as the national defence concept matures.

Policy and literature review

In this section, this paper draws on the literature to define self-reliance in the history of defence policymaking and contrasts this definition with its usage in national defence policy. Following a review of the origin of the self-reliance concept, this section analyses the usage of the concept throughout the DoA era to define what self-reliance meant then: the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently. Next, this section reviews the usage of the concept in the DSR and NDS to define what self-reliance might mean now: the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF. These two contrasting definitions form the basis of my two hypotheses with which to test parliamentary discourse.

Genesis of the self-reliance concept

In its genesis in Australian defence policymaking, self-reliance meant the ability of the ADF to defend the country independently, that is, without relying on the US or other allies for support except in extremis. In their book, Girt by Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security, Rebecca Strating and Joanne Wallis place this genesis over the period 1967–69, which saw the following three important milestones.^[2] Firstly, the British announced that they would withdraw from Australia’s near region.^[3] Following the fall of Singapore in 1942, Australian policymakers had already turned attention away from the British and towards the US for protection; nevertheless, this raised initial concerns about the requirement to defend Australia independently.^[4] Secondly, in the context of these concerns, the 1968 Strategic Basis Paper (1968 SBP) stated that ‘we have recognised that we must be prepared to deal independently with any situation which directly threatens Australia’s territorial interests.’^[5] Indeed, based on a search of all defence strategic guidance over 1945–1976, as compiled by Stephan Früling, the first occurrence of the term self-reliance was in the 1968 SBP.^[6] In this context, self-reliance was juxtaposed with the importance of alliances in an environment of needing to maintain ongoing equipment compatibility.^[7] Consequently, self-reliance did not mean foregoing alliances, but it did emphasise the need for a greater ability to conduct operations unilaterally. Thirdly, President Nixon made remarks in Guam that became known as the Guam Doctrine.^[8] In 1969, he stated that, while the US would honour its alliance commitments in the Asian region, he expected that allies would become increasingly independent in territorial defence, ‘except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons.’^[9] Based on the context in which the term self-reliance first appears, and especially noting the Guam Doctrine, the initial usage of the term self-reliance alludes to the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independent of an alliance, should this be required.^[10] However, the alliance was not set aside with such a policy, and the two terms were reconciled in the 1970s.^[11]

Self-reliance in DoA

Following its genesis, self-reliance came to mean the ability of the ADF to defend Australia from low-to-medium level threats, with the alliance being relied upon to defeat a major attack. Developing out of further classified policy papers in the early 1970s, the concept of self- reliance was first articulated publicly in the 1976 white paper, which devoted six paragraphs to the subject.^[12] While not explicitly defined in this white paper, self-reliance in this context was that Australia had the responsibility for deterring major threats but with confidence in the US’s ability to support a response to aggression, and also that it should expect to handle lower level contingencies independently.^[13] This was in appreciation of Australia’s geographical position and low likelihood of a major conventional attack being launched against it.^[14] Into the 1980s, the 1987 white paper built upon the concepts of self-reliance extensively. On the policy of self- reliance, it states that:

Australia must have the military capability to prevent an enemy from attacking us successfully in our sea and air approaches, gaining a foothold on our territory, or extracting political concessions from us through the use of military force. These are uniquely Australian interests and Australia must have the independent military capability to defend them.^[15]

Essentially, self-reliance meant unilaterally preventing any credible attack on Australia or its sea or air lines of communication.^[16] Nevertheless, the 1987 white paper states that ‘this policy of defence self-reliance is pursued within a framework of alliances and agreements. The most significant of these is with the United States.’^[17] Importantly, it reinforces the 1976 position that the Australia-US alliance would be relied upon in the event of a major attack.^[18] Ultimately, despite not subordinating the Australia-US alliance, these first two defence white papers set the scene for the official defence policy of self-reliance as meaning the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently.

From the 1990s and up to the release of the DSR, self-reliance remained a common theme in defence policy documents and was applied in a similar vein to the 1970s and 1980s. White papers were released in 1994, 2000, 2009, 2013 and 2016, as well as the Defence Strategic Update (DSU) in 2020, where the concept remained a common thread.^[19] For example, the 1994 white paper stated clearly that ‘the foundation of the Government’s defence policy is self- reliance, which requires that Australia maintain the military capabilities to defend our country without depending on help from other countries’ combat forces.’^[20] This sentiment is echoed in the 2000, 2009, 2013 and 2016 iterations of the white paper, and the DSU^[21] Consistent with the Guam Doctrine, each of these policy documents highlights one notable exception to self- reliance as being the nuclear deterrence umbrella afforded by the US as part of the alliance.^[22] Professor Stephan Frühling affirms this prevailing narrative of self-reliance meaning defence of the continent without relying on allies’ combat forces, and links it with the concept of DoA as both concepts arose out of post-Vietnam War policymaking.^[23] He adds that both concepts were ‘used to make arguments about the necessary size, sophistication and readiness of the ADF, and contained a strategy of how the ADF could be used to secure the country.’^[24] Importantly, ‘self-reliance never meant self-sufficiency.’^[25] That is, a self-reliant force would still rely on ‘allied intelligence, logistics and other support.’^[26] Therefore, considering what was meant by the concept of self-reliance, it is important to understand what it might mean now in national defence policy.

Self-reliance in national defence

The DSR and NDS have retained the term self-reliance, albeit less frequently than previous policy documents; however, most of its use since the DSU has been tied to strengthening domestic industry. Notably, the DoA doctrine was last affirmed in the 2016 white paper, but the self-reliance concept has remained.^[27] Self-reliance is directly referred to six times in the DSU, including referring to ideas such as ‘strengthened sovereign industry, … [reducing] dependencies on partners for critical capability, … [increasing] the range and quantity of the weapon stocks [Defence] holds, … [and building] Australia’s self-reliant geospatial- information and intelligence capability.’^[28] These ideas appear somewhat contrary to the previous policy that self-reliance does not mean logistical or intelligence self-sufficiency. Moreover, the DSR affirmed that the DoA doctrine is not appropriate anymore, and the NDS officially replaced the doctrine with national defence.^[29] Nevertheless, the DSR and NDS each refer to self-reliance four times and appear to build upon the DSU’s foundation in moving towards industrial self-reliance, albeit not necessarily total industrial self-reliance. Of the eight references to self-reliance across the DSR and NDS, six relate directly to logistics or domestic industry.^[30] For example, the DSR states regarding naval shipbuilding capability that ‘creating and sustaining this industrial capability, including the underpinning workforce, is a critical component of self-reliance in national defence.’^[31] However, the NDS states awkwardly that ‘a sovereign defence industrial base is not one characterised by complete self-reliance, but is rather underpinned by industrial capability resident in Australia that, if necessary, can effectively leverage international defence industry to deliver defence capabilities in the timeframes required.’^[32] This is awkward as it presumes that self-reliance can exist without being complete, and this statement somewhat undermines the strengths of the other assertions on self-reliance. Finally, consistent with earlier policies, two of the eight references to self- reliance appear to allude to the ADF’s ability to defend Australia independently. An example is where the NDS states that ‘the Government is determined to ensure that Australia becomes more capable, self-reliant and takes greater responsibility for its own security.’^[33] Ultimately, the weight of references to self-reliance in the DSR and NDS appears to be signalling a shift in the usage of the term self-reliance away from the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently to the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF.

Summary and hypotheses

Overall, the concept of self-reliance in the DoA context held a relatively consistent meaning from its conception in the 1960s through to the final use of the DoA concept in the 2016 white paper; that is, that self-reliance means the ADF’s ability to defend Australia independently. Although DoA has been replaced with national defence, some usages of the term self-reliance in the DSR and NDS appear consistent with this initial conception. This leads to the first of two hypotheses (H1) for what self-reliance in national defence might mean in parliamentary discourse:

However, most of the use of self-reliance in national defence policy via the DSR and NDS is heavily focused on domestic industry and alludes to an industry-focussed definition of self-reliance; that is, that self-reliance means domestic industry’s ability to support the ADF. This leads to the second of two hypotheses (H2):

These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive but provide the framework through which parliamentary discourse is tested in the remainder of the paper to establish what politicians and senior leaders mean by self-reliance in the national defence era.

Data and methodology

In this section, this paper discusses the sources of data used for the research and the methods used in processing and analysing the data. In doing so, this section identifies both my self- imposed research limits designed to constrain the paper’s scope to the key topics under consideration while acknowledging some effects of these limitations. It also addresses potential areas for bias and how these have been mitigated.

This paper uses records of recent parliamentary proceedings as the source data for understanding the Australian Government’s approach towards self-reliance and its interrelatedness with the national defence concept. I sourced the records directly from the official Australian Parliament House website at ‘aph.gov.au.’ Records were selected from the timeframe of 01 April 2023 through to 30 September 2024 to limit the scope of the research to an 18-month period. Importantly, the start month and year were based on the release date of the DSR and the end date was only limited by the time of writing, allowing for the most contemporaneous records to be used. Moreover, the parliamentary proceedings used include the full series of Hansard from both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the Senate Estimates from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee. This committee was selected for its direct relevance to defence-related matters. In total, the parliamentary records used include 95 editions of Hansard from the House of Representatives, 86 from the Senate, and 14 from the Senate Estimates Committee.^[34] Therefore, this research is based on 195 records which were subjected to analysis as described below.

All 195 records were imported into the software application NVivo 14 for analysis. I then used a mixed methods approach that included an initial quantitative analysis of the full selection of materials, followed by a qualitative analysis of the results. The purpose of the quantitative analysis was to determine how frequently selected terms appeared in the records to produce a numerical output, whereas the qualitative analysis was about understanding and interpreting the text to identify key themes present in the discourse.^[35] Both methods were used to mitigate potential selection bias on my part by starting with such a large sample size for the quantitative analysis before conducting a more detailed qualitative analysis. This was also to avoid a lengthy exposition of less relevant parts of the parliamentary discourse.

Starting with the quantitative analysis, I ran two text search queries for key terms related to this research to identify relevant matches from the whole selection of materials. The first query ran was for the noun phrase ‘national defence.’ Additionally, the second query ran was for the compound nouns ‘self-reliance’ and ‘self-reliant’ using the Boolean operator ‘OR’ to capture both spelling variants. I then reviewed each match from the two queries in order to exclude results that were not in the context of the core topic of this paper, such as a reference to the size of the defence budget in debates about the cost of superannuation tax concessions to government revenue.^[36] The results of these queries are discussed in the next section and form the basis of the qualitative analysis. Various other text search queries were also run to identify potentially missed results, such as with cognate words or other variations, with nothing significant identified from an initial scan of the results.^[37] A deeper analysis of these other queries was beyond the self-imposed research limits.

Moving onto the qualitative analysis, the results of the queries were reviewed in detail to identify key themes present. Initially, I used each match to produce a series of extracts from the respective Hansards that included the entire context in which the search term was found. Subsequently, I coded each extract in NVivo 14 according to the primary topic under discussion, such as domestic industry or capability procurements. A level of subjectivity was required here on my part to classify each extract according to broad themes. This subjectivity was mitigated by reading the entirety of the surrounding discourse to gauge an understanding of the whole context. These thematic classifications are summarised in the next section. Finally, of all the coded material, I identified key extracts that relate most directly to the hypotheses above, especially any extracts that included coding for both national defence and self-reliance. These are discussed in the final section and tested against the hypotheses.

Overall, the data used for this research have been limited to recent Hansards of the House of Representatives, Senate and the defence-related component of the Senate Estimates committee. A quantitative analysis was conducted of key concepts throughout all records, with a qualitative analysis applied to the extracted records to identify key themes. These findings are discussed in the next section with key, selected materials applied in the subsequent section as part of a discourse analysis as they relate to the hypotheses identified in the policy and literature review.

Research findings

In this section, this paper discusses the findings of the quantitative and qualitative analyses described in the previous section. It identifies domestic industry as the most common theme in the discourse on national defence and self-reliance, with capability procurements as another prominent theme. Finally, it also identifies key Hansard extracts to be discussed further in the next section.

After excluding results that were out of context, the query on the topic of national defence returned 41 matches. Two of the 41 matches appeared in close proximity to an earlier match, resulting in 39 extracts for qualitative analysis. Within the 39 extracts, four key themes were identified: domestic industry, capability procurements, the federal budget, and a proposed Parliamentary Joint Committee on Defence (PJCD). The number of times each theme was identified as the primary theme in an extract was calculated; this is summarised in table 1 below. Importantly, four extracts were equally focussed on both domestic industry and capability procurements, so these have been coded to both themes; hence, the number of occurrences listed in the table would total 43, even though there are only 39 extracts. These results indicate that both domestic industry and capability procurements are the top two themes in the parliamentary discourse on the national defence topic. Domestic industry received slightly more attention than capability procurements, with three more extracts than the other.

The query on the topic of self-reliance returned 26 matches, also after excluding irrelevant results. Six of the 26 matches appeared in close proximity to an earlier match, resulting in 20 extracts for qualitative analysis. Within the 20 extracts, two key themes were identified, both of which were the top two themes in the previous query: domestic industry and capability procurements. As per the national defence query, the number of times each theme was identified as the primary theme in an extract was calculated, and this is summarised in table 2 below. Significantly, these results indicate that the usage of the term self-reliance in contemporary political discourse relates overwhelmingly to domestic industry rather than capability procurements, with 18 extracts coded to domestic industry compared with two coded to capability procurements. Moreover, nine out of the 18 extracts on domestic industry spoke specifically about defence. However, the results concerning capability procurements do provide a perspective that relates to the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently, and these are explored in the next section.

Noting the large number of extracts produced from the preceding analyses, it is important to identify some key extracts to take forward to further discussion. Although 39 extracts were coded to national defence and 20 were coded to self-reliance, there were only 57 extracts in total. This is because two extracts were coded to both concepts, meaning that the terms national defence and self-reliance appeared in the same extract. Therefore, these are the first two extracts that will be discussed in the next section due to the high coding density. Moreover, a further five extracts have been identified by their content as most directly relating to the hypotheses. It is acknowledged that the remaining 50 extracts do have value; however, I assert that none of these undermines the forthcoming arguments, and for the sake of efficiency, further discussion on these is not necessary.

Overall, this section has identified domestic industry and capability procurements as the two key themes surrounding parliamentary discourse on the national defence doctrine. Additionally, most of the discourse on the concept of self-reliance relates exclusively to domestic industry. Of the 57 extracts produced, I have selected the seven most relevant extracts to take forward to further discussion in the next section.

Discussion

In this section, this paper reviews the findings above to demonstrate which hypotheses have been proven or disproven from the quantitative and qualitative analysis. The findings show little support for H1, which is that self-reliance in national defence means the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently. Conversely, they show some strong support for H2, which is that self-reliance means the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF. The section discusses key extracts from the parliamentary discourse to reinforce these findings.

The research findings demonstrate that discussions around domestic industry prevail as the key themes in analysing the concepts of both national defence and self-reliance, with discussion strongest in percentage terms in the context of self-reliance. Returning to the hypotheses, the initial findings affirm H2 in queries on both national defence and self-reliance because themes surrounding domestic industry were most common on both fronts. This is reinforced by analyses of two key extracts below. H2 is limited definitionally but not disproven by a third extract, also discussed below. Furthermore, the researcher found nil direct thematic support for H1. That said, a series of extracts on capability procurements may imply support for H1; however, the majority of these extracts only reference national defence, not self-reliance. The two extracts in this series that do reference self-reliance provide a contrarian view to argue that national defence lessens self-reliance as defined by H1. This series of extracts is the last to be discussed herein.

The first key extract to be discussed debates the NDS and links the concept of self-reliance directly to domestic defence industry. Speaking in Senate debates on matters of public importance on 13 August 2024, independent Senator David Van submitted the motion that ‘Australia’s sovereign defence manufacturing industry must be sufficiently funded so that Australia has the capability to fight.’^[38] In discussing this motion, Senator Van quotes the NDS’s calls for ‘a sovereign defence industrial base’ as critical for achieving defence self-reliance.^[39] He expressed concern that the Australian Government was not allocating sufficient financial resources to domestic manufacturers that can produce many of the capabilities the ADF needs. Importantly, Senator Van’s motion was supported by senators from five political parties.^[40] While none of their responses directly mentioned self-reliance, each senator spoke at length about the importance of a strong defence industry to achieving national security. This indicates that, across a spectrum of political parties and independents, domestic defence industry is now considered to be an essential support to the ADF. Senator Raff Ciccone, Australian Labor Party (ALP), did not directly support the motion itself, but he did rise to contribute.^[41] Although he also did not mention the term self-reliance, he directly linked the importance of a strong sovereign defence industry to the ability of the ADF to defend the country, and he did so by highlighting increases in defence spending on domestically-produced capabilities, such as munitions manufacturing.^[42] As with the other senators, this alludes to the importance of domestic defence industry to military self-reliance, and he only drew a second-order link to the ability of the ADF to defend Australia, with no reference to independent defence. Ultimately, the context here further demonstrates direct support for H2 and provides only limited indirect support for H1.

The second key extract to be discussed also links the concept of self-reliance in domestic industry to the NDS. Mr Phillip Thompson OAM MP, Liberal National Party of Queensland, had raised a similar motion to Senator Van’s, calling upon the Government to ‘urgently implement a policy framework and industry support to build our industrial self-reliance with Australian defence industry primes.’^[43] In her response, Ms Tania Lawrence MP, ALP, directly linked industrial self-reliance to the DSR and NDS.^[44] Following on from comments about the DSR, she linked present-day, complex security challenges in the Australian region to the Government’s plan to create a ‘robust sovereign and economically significant defence industry in Australia.’^[45] A further seven members of parliament from both the Government and the Opposition debated the motion, and all placed a strong emphasis on the need for a strong domestic defence industry to enable the ADF.^[46] Therefore, it is clear from this debate that domestic defence industry is seen as a critical component of self-reliance in the national defence era, also supporting H2 and providing no evidence to support H1.

The above two extracts are limited slightly by a third extract, which, like the philosophy of self-reliance in the DoA era, limits self-reliance to not meaning complete self-reliance, though remaining on the topic of domestic industry. Speaking at Senate Estimates, Mr Tom Hamilton, Deputy Secretary DSR Implementation Taskforce, stated that developing the sovereign industrial base is not about achieving complete self-reliance but an industry that supports national defence directly and that can leverage links with international firms to meet Defence capability requirements.^[47] In response, Senator Van observed that any future conflict in Australia’s near region would threaten its sea lines of communication, in which case the country would be completely reliant on domestic industry to sustain any Australian involvement.^[48] Therefore, the concept of self-reliance in parliamentary discourse concedes that self-reliance is not total in the national defence concept, comparable with how its usage was limited in the DoA era. However, the focus of self-reliance in this context remains oriented towards domestic industry, as per the previous extract, rather than the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently, as per its usage in the previous era. Therefore, the third extract maintains support for H2 but limits the scope of what self-reliance means.

Finally, a series of four extracts demonstrates that the procurement of ADF capabilities to defend the continent is a critical component of national defence; however, importantly, the limited usages of the term self-reliance in this context imply the Government is no longer applying its previous meaning. On 09 May 2023, speaking following the release of the DSR and concerning the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS^[49] partnership, Senator Ciccone stated that ‘there is broad acknowledgement that we cannot entirely rely on other nations to deter conflict in our region. We need to acquire the capabilities necessary to be a serious deterrent in our own right.’^[50] Furthermore, on 19 August 2024, speaking concerning the NDS, Mr Steve Georganas MP, ALP, stated that acquiring these submarines is critical to developing an ADF that can more effectively defend Australia.^[51] These two extracts indicate clearly that the ADF’s ability to defend Australia independently is a significant component of national defence, but it is important to note that self-reliance was not mentioned. Critically, two extracts from independent Ms Zoe Daniel MP argue that the AUKUS partnership reduces Australia’s self-reliance as envisaged under the DoA concept.^[52] In this context, it is clear that Ms Daniel is using the term self-reliance as proposed under H1 but is of the view that AUKUS capability procurements are a step away from the ADF’s ability to defend Australia independently due to dependence on the US and the United Kingdom. Thus, this series of extracts demonstrates that national defence remains focussed on the ADF’s ability to defend Australia, but the ability to do so independently is no longer a concept tied to self- reliance.

Overall, the findings and the selected extracts demonstrate strong support for H2 and limited support for H1 because they tie self-reliance directly to the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF rather than the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently. Consequently, H2 is confirmed, and H1 is rejected. Many more extracts could be described further but are not included due to scope limitations. None of these extracts would provide any further rebuttal to assertions regarding either hypothesis. Importantly, the rejection of H1 does not imply that common usage of the term self-reliance does not mean the use of the ADF to defend Australia; it simply states that, as far as contemporary parliamentary discourse is concerned, the use of the concept of self-reliance in national defence is about the ability of domestic defence industry to support the ADF. There remains, however, a concession that self- reliance is not total and depends on international linkages.

Conclusion

In summary, this paper has reviewed key policy and literature on the concept of self-reliance in the history of Australian defence policy. In its conception, self-reliance meant the ability of the ADF to defend Australia independently from any support provided by the Australia-US alliance. The Australia-US alliance remained complimentary to the concept of self-reliance, with US support relied upon only in circumstances beyond the ADF’s capacity, such as nuclear deterrence. Moreover, the term self-reliance was tied directly to the DoA doctrine and formed the basis of the first hypothesis. Importantly, since the birth of the national defence doctrine, which replaced the DoA, self-reliance within an alliance framework has remained a supporting concept. However, references to self-reliance in the DSR and NDS appear to emphasise the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF rather than the ADF’s ability to defend Australia independently. This formed the basis of the second hypothesis. Both hypotheses were tested against the present usage of the terms national defence and self-reliance in parliamentary discourse to ascertain what policymakers mean by self-reliance in the national defence era.

The research findings indicate clearly that the majority of parliamentary discourse on self- reliance and national defence relates to domestic industry, and this represents a departure from the self-reliant DoA concept. This does not mean that national defence does not seek, in general, to generate an ADF capable of defending Australia independently; it simply means that the use of the term self-reliance has shifted focus and is now oriented towards industrial self-reliance in contemporary parliamentary discourse. Therefore, as far as this discourse is concerned, self-reliance in national defence means the ability of domestic industry to support the ADF. However, it is conceded in the discourse that Australia could not be completely self- reliant, but this concession does not undermine the proven hypothesis.

Moving forward, with the changing use of the term self-reliance, it is questioned whether such a term remains relevant in Australian defence policy due to potential ambiguities and whether a better concept should be found. Such ambiguities may be problematic in the practical application of defence policy when interlocutors hold different ideas about what basic concepts mean, and this may impair the development of a cohesive strategy. As the national defence doctrine matures, further research is recommended into how these ambiguities are addressed at a practical level and whether there are any unintended consequences of the ambiguity, such as policy implications. If Australian policymakers truly seek self-reliance, then they need both a self-reliant ADF and a self-reliant domestic industry. If not, then it may be time for policymakers to discard the concept of self-reliance and say what they really mean.