The Chief of Australia's Army has rejected the idea WA's north is under-defended, while giving insight into how the state is on the "leading edge" of efforts to transform the fighting force.
Lieutenant General Simon Stuart was a keynote speaker at the Indian Ocean Defence and Security Conference in Perth yesterday.
In hosting the gathering, WA's Defence Industry Minister Paul Papalia said he hoped to show decision-makers what WA had to offer.
He said the conference was timely, with a review into Australia's military structure and preparedness currently underway.
"I assume the findings will identify that, as I've said before, Western Australia is under-defended," he said.
But speaking to the ABC on the conference sidelines, Lieutenant General Stuart said he had a "different perspective" to Mr Papalia.
"I think a lot of notions about defence are probably a bit dated," he said.
"What matters today is making sure that we can see ourselves, and we can see our environment."
With more than three decades of experience under his belt, he said it was becoming increasingly important to share information across agencies – including between Border Force, WA Police, and Army units.
Room for improved communication
During a panel discussion, Mr Papalia raised the issue of communication between parts of the armed forces, and agencies like state police.
The Chief of Army acknowledged it was an area where improvements could be made.
"We've got great cooperation on the ground, we need to do some more work to build the systems and the policies to support that," he said.
"Why that's important is because that then tells us where we need to be and when we need to be there.
"We're a very large nation and a modest-size ADF [Australian Defence Force], so we need to understand where to best place assets and when."
Mr Papalia has long campaigned for a greater defence presence in WA and continued to push his case yesterday.
"We are the source of around 50 per cent of the nation's export value, and we are a third of the continent, and we have very few assets beyond naval assets here," he said.
"We have these massive, incredibly attractive assets and export capabilities we're really reliant upon, so they're vulnerable.
"If you want to damage Australia, you can damage our economy really quickly by intercepting our ability to trade."
It leaves what he described as a "key gap" in the defence force's posture, which he said could be filled by more permanent Army and Air Force "combat elements".
WA's most senior Army officer, and Commander of 13 Brigade Brigadier Brett Chaloner, had a similar view to his boss.
"One of the challenges we're always going to have is that Western Australia, like Australia, is a huge land mass with a massive coastline, and we're always going to be a comparatively small force," he said.
"So how we move and how we scale is going to be really important, and equally how we access and integrate other capabilities across government, industry and academia."
Those efforts to bring in experience from outside the military are among what the Chief of Army described as a transformation of the force, of which he said WA's reserve element was at the "leading edge".
Push to find 'more friends'
After Kim Beazley urged the conference to strengthen its relationship with India to compete with the rise of China, Lieutenant General Stuart said that was just one part of a region-wide approach, noting India was important for many of the same reasons China is.
"That engagement with the Indo part of the Indo-Pacific is really important and that's what everybody here … is focused on, and I think we're all in agreement that it could do with a bit more care and attention," he said.
"The more people we can work with, the more friends we can have, the better off we're going to be."
Brigadier Chaloner said building relationships across the region was "absolutely" one of his focuses.
"We've always had a relationship with India, it's been quite productive over the years," he said.
"But there's certainly an appetite now to increase the level of engagement and activity right across the domains, so land, sea air and others."
