Cowper MP and Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Luke Hartsuyker and NSW Senator Jim Molan visited the two businesses on February 19.

It comes after the release of the federal government’s Defence Export Strategy.

The document sets out the policy and strategy to make Australia one of the top 10 global defence exporters within the next decade.

Senator Molan was impressed with what he saw in Port Macquarie.

“The biggest and most important thing that I think the people of Port Macquarie should concentrate on is the fact that the opportunities for SMEs, for small to medium enterprises, in Port Macquare are just extraordinary,” he said.

Senator Molan said Bale Defence Industries and Birdon were in great positions.

Birdon is a diversified engineering and services business offering innovative solutions to the military and marine industries.

Bale Defence Industries designs and manufactures military equipment and defence-related products.

“The thing that strikes me about so many SMEs in Australia, and both Bale and Birdon, is they are innovators of the first magnitude,” Senator Molan said.

The Defence Export Strategy brings together the levers available to government and industry to provide end-to-end support for Australian defence exports including building readiness, identifying export opportunities and realising export results.

Mr Hartsuyker said Birdon and Bale Defence Industries were competitive in world markets, delivering an absolute top quality product and their sales in a competitive market was proof of that.

There will be $20 million a year to implement the Defence Force Strategy and support defence industry exports and an additional $4.1 million for grants to help build the capability of small and medium enterprises to compete internationally.

Birdon general manager Peter Besseling said the real opportunity was in government incentivising the large players involved in the shipbuilding industry to utilise regional small to medium enterprises.

“There needs to be the incentives to be able to do that so we can play a part in providing strong local content and it’s actually great to hear the Senator today echoing those sentiments,” he said.

“If we want our manufacturing industry to remain viable, and more than that, to grow, which is what we are all about, those incentives need to be part of it.”

Mr Besseling said Birdon was a good sized enterprise with good links overseas, winning contracts and exporting off the back of Birdon’s initiatives.

“This was a result of Birdon’s efforts to promote ourselves overseas and win contracts overseas,” he said.

“We are in a perfect position to be able to expand that and government is in a perfect position to be able to support it.”