Defence industry

Minutes from the heart of Rockingham, Fleet Base West is located at HMAS Stirling on Garden Island and is the Royal Australian Navy’s largest base in Australia.

At present, 12 fleet units including Anzac Class frigates and Collins Class submarines are stationed here, along with an additional 70 units including the Submarine Training and Systems Centre, Clearance Diving Team Four, and the Defence Communications Station Perth.

Under the planned Navy Capability Infrastructure Sub-Program, Fleet Base West will become homeport to additional Hunter Class frigates, Arafura Class offshore patrol vessels and Attack Class submarines when they come into service. This will result in significant expansion, sustainment and maintenance opportunities in the coming years. An estimated one billion dollars will be spent on extensions to the existing wharves, construction of new office buildings, training facilities and living accommodation to support the new vessels and personnel who will be calling Fleet Base West their new home.

The expansion of Fleet Base West has the potential to create thousands of jobs within the City of Rockingham as well as provide opportunities for local business to tender for associated contracts.

There are three parts to this initiative:

• Part 1 - the City of Rockingham has been running a series of workshops and events to support local businesses to become Defence Ready. In-person workshops were designed to provide need-to-know information and critical insights to help businesses prepare and tender for work in the Defence supply chain.
• Part 2 - a series of events were designed to meet with key leaders to assess up and coming projects, pitfalls and opportunities, collate the knowledge, and give local businesses firsthand networking opportunities.
• Part 3 - the Defence Industry Update is an event designed to provide a short, sharp, updated briefing of the outcomes from parts 1 and 2. Presented by Peter Law, HMAS Stirling Base Manager and other key stakeholders within the Defence Industry Supply Chain, this is your chance to find out more about the up and coming work available in the local area.

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To further support local businesses to participate in the estimated $8 billion infrastructure projects set to occur at HMAS Stirling (Fleet Base West) on Garden Island, the City partnered with Business Foundations to deliver a series of Defence Ready Business Workshops. 

Previous workshop topics included:

• Business strategy to become a defence contractor
• Understanding defence contracts
• Preparing your workforce for a defence contract
• Defence industry security program (DSIP).

More workshops will be planned in the near future and advertised accordingly for interested stakeholders.

• The Office of Defence Industry Support (ODIS; formerly the Centre for Defence Industry Capability, or CDIC) is a Federal Government organisation tasked with helping small business connect, build, innovate and export in the defence industry.
• Defence West is a State Government organisation responsible for growing the local defence industry and advocating and driving strategic projects to increase the capability and output of WA’s defence industry. 
• The Defence Business Readiness Tool is a secure, stand-alone web-based system (provided by ODIS) that allows SMEs to assess themselves against industry best-practices for Defence suppliers, help them understand what it means to be ‘Defence Ready’ and prioritise actions to help them grow their Defence business capability.