5 October 2026

Acknowledgements:

• Governor of Western Australia - His Excellency the Honourable Christopher Dawson.
• Premier of Western Australia - The Honourable Roger Cook.
• The Lord Mayor of the City of Perth - the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor Bruce Reynolds.
• Deputy Premier Queensland, Minister for State Development, Infrastructure and Planning and Minister for Industrial Relations - the Honourable Jarrod Bleijie.
• Minister for Defence and Space Industries and Minister for Veterans' Affairs, South Australian Government - the Honourable Chris Picton.
• Ambassadors and High Commissioners.
• Land Forces industry and dinner sponsors, and charity partner Defence Kidz.
• The Australian Army Band - for being absolute legends and representatives of the Army.
• Honoured guests, friends, ladies and gentlemen, Team Army.

What a privilege to meet tonight in this remarkable stadium.

Sport is a huge part of the Australian character. We all love the thrill of the game, whatever the code … but especially Rugby Union!

Sport is all about teamwork. Every winning team knows that the dividing line between victory and defeat is razor thin.

Victory doesn’t just come from fitness or skill. It comes from the will to go further - together as a team - to get across the line.

My husband often says to our kids: ‘it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it matters if you win!’. Mindsets matter.

Building the best teams in the world has long been a task for coaches and captains. Culture, character and leadership create the essential fighting spirit.

But in recent years collaboration with technology and industry has pushed sport to whole new levels.

The most elite human performance is no longer just about training harder, it is about training smarter. GPS player tracking, biometrics, and even cryogenics are pushing humans to the very limit.

It is technology and industry - not evolution - that is helping humans break world records and two-hour marathons … far beyond the horizons of what has been possible.

The Australian Army is arguably one of our nation’s greatest teams. Full stop.

For over 125 years we have developed the leadership and character that has carried our soldiers across the shores of Gallipoli, through the jungles of Kokoda, and to the dusts of Uruzgan.

We’re pretty good at it. The ideas of mateship and the spirit of the Anzacs have held our Army together through the world’s most brutal battles.

But mateship alone will not be enough in tomorrow’s wars. Warfare is evolving. Robotics, mass data, autonomy, machine learning and artificial intelligence are creating a battlefield that is remarkable in its speed and lethality.

These technologies, I attest, will define the future character of war.

The Ukrainians are showing us that modern warfare is defined by the ability to adapt. The army that can evolve faster and more successfully than the enemy gains a vital edge.

Failure to adapt leads to only one outcome … disaster and defeat.

This change in war’s character is almost always described as a threat. For our Army, I see it as an opportunity.

Advanced technologies can help us take the Army’s teams to new frontiers. We can see further, decide faster, and strike harder in more places than ever before.

But to seize this, adaptation cannot be an occasional activity.

We must be hardwired to adapt.

This makes our relationship with defence industry essential… maybe even existential.

We need genuine partnerships – ones that go beyond the commercial or convenient, built on trust and a shared commitment to defending the nation.

This is why the RSM of the Army and I are delighted that the Australian Army is again partnering with AMDA for Land Forces.

We are particularly delighted to see so many sovereign Australian defence companies. In almost forty years of service, I have never seen this sector so vibrant, energetic and full of potential.

It is why we hope to see a packed room at the Chief of Army Symposium on Wednesday and Thursday. We are bringing you an amazing team of experts, military and industry leaders to pull apart military adaptation in detail. But we need you, and your ideas, to make it complete.

So, thank you again for joining us in this beautiful city of Perth. It with great pleasure that I declare Land Forces open. To return to sport, the Olympic motto is ‘faster, higher, stronger’. These are worthwhile aspirations for an Army too, and I look forward to working with you to achieve them. Team Army – Soldiers for Life.