In December 2025, Treasurer Jim Chalmers approved an increase in South Korean defence company Hanwha’s stake in Austal to 19.9 percent.
FIRB's current membership and gaps
The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) is Australia’s principal gatekeeper for foreign direct investment. Its six members, the board’s published membership shows, bring experience in finance, corporate governance, innovation, energy, diplomacy, intelligence and public administration. The chair, Bruce Miller, is noted as an expert in international affairs who has served as ambassador to Japan and in senior intelligence positions.
However, the board’s published membership identifies no specialist whose principal expertise is military capability or defence industry. The article argues this is a meaningful gap at a time of growing defence- and security-related investment proposals.
Defence-capability expertise: practical knowledge that differs from intelligence or diplomacy
Defence-capability expertise, the source stresses, is not interchangeable with intelligence or foreign-policy experience. It encompasses practical, technical knowledge: industrial dependencies, specialised technologies, production bottlenecks, maintenance requirements and the investments needed to sustain military capability.
The piece recommends adding a board member with “substantial practical experience in defence capability development, acquisition, sustainment and industrial mobilisation” to complement FIRB’s existing skill set — not to convert the board into another security agency, but to strengthen its capacity to weigh strategic consequences against economic benefits.
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End the scrambleAustal and Hanwha: why a 19.9% stake matters
The Hanwha–Austal decision illustrates the trade-offs FIRB must judge. The December 2025 approval increased Hanwha’s stake to 19.9 percent in Austal, Australia’s shipbuilder. That move raised concerns in Tokyo because Austal had been chosen as the Australian partner for local construction of Australian frigates based on the Japanese Upgraded Mogami design.
Those concerns can be managed through strict regulatory conditions and diplomatic reassurances — as Treasurer Chalmers imposed — but the story underlines the need for screening assessments that understand how future decisions about capital expenditure, production priorities, workforce development and technology access could affect Australia’s defence industrial capability.
Darwin Port, Williamstown Shipyard and lessons from past decisions
The article points to the 99-year lease of Darwin Port to Chinese company Landbridge in 2015 as a cautionary example. At the time, the arrangement did not hit the then-FIRB threshold; the review process was reformed immediately after the lease. The Department of Defence reportedly had no problem with the arrangement then, yet it is now bipartisan policy that the lease “should never have happened,” and the government is “working out how to take control back from the Chinese company.”
Separately, Australian Defence Magazine reported that the historic Williamstown Shipyard near the Port of Melbourne will be sold to a company at least partly owned by a Hong Kong investment group, apparently because it was the highest bidder. As recently as the last decade the yard built warships and tested their electronics integration on land — details that demand technical understanding when assessing national-defence implications.
What this means for the Department of Defence, FIRB, and Australian shipbuilders
- Department of Defence: The article notes that while the department will be consulted on defence-related proposals, FIRB needs independent expertise to “test such views” and to provide due diligence beyond agency consultation.
- FIRB: A board member with defence-capability experience would be positioned to interrogate Department of Defence advice, identify missing questions and weigh strategic consequences alongside economic benefits — functions the article frames as necessary for confidence in the screening process.
- Australian shipbuilders and defence-related firms (Austal, Williamstown Shipyard, etc.): These entities face high scrutiny over future capital decisions, production priorities and workforce development; screening outcomes could hinge on assessments of how investment decisions affect sovereign sustainment and industrial mobilisation.
The central proposition is straightforward: foreign direct investment brings capital, technology and expertise that are vital to prosperity and security, but commercially rational decisions can sometimes produce strategic fragility. To prevent decisions that might weaken defence capability — and to avoid waiting for a public crisis before reforming the system — the article urges the government to appoint a FIRB member with hands-on defence-capability experience so the board can test assumptions, probe consequences and make better-informed judgements.
