Australia picks former Rio Tinto boss Kellie Parker to run its new defence delivery agency

Kellie Parker, the former chief executive of Rio Tinto's Australian business, is set to be appointed Australia's National Armaments Director, the official who heads the organisation the Albanese government created to get major defence projects delivered on time and on budget. The Australian Financial Review and The West Australian reported the appointment on Monday, with the Financial Review saying it would be made formally on Tuesday.

According to the Financial Review, the government wants the appointment to bring stronger commercial discipline to the armed forces, and Parker will be responsible for overseeing the delivery of major defence projects. The West Australian described her task as fixing troubled defence projects worth many billions of dollars.

A report published by the Dutch news site Headliner said Parker would take up the post in early November. It said she led Rio Tinto Australia until June and had earlier run the mining group's iron ore and aluminium operations.

The same report said Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, in a government statement, described her appointment as a good fit with the government's aim of delivering increasingly complex defence projects quickly and at scale. Conroy said the job was about delivering capability on time and at lower cost while getting the most value from record defence spending, according to the report.

Headliner reported that her immediate priorities would be shipbuilding, guided weapons and the purchase of tanks and armoured vehicles, and that she would have no role in the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine programme. That boundary is written into finance rules made in August, which list the agency's purpose as acquisition, sustainment and disposal for air, land, maritime and space capabilities, with nuclear-powered submarines excluded.

The post is the centrepiece of a reform the government describes as the biggest overhaul of the defence organisation in fifty years. On 1 July 2026 it set up the Defence Delivery Group, which brings the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Group and the Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Group under a single leader. The group is due to become the independent Defence Delivery Agency on 1 July 2027. Nadine Williams was named interim National Armaments Director when the group was formed.

When it launched the group, the government said the new structure would give it independent, evidence-based advice on delivery, something it said had been missing in the past. It also promised stronger contestability and better cost estimation across the new agency, the Department of Defence and the Department of Finance, and said industry would get clearer demand signals and face stronger commercial discipline.

Under the finance rules, the National Armaments Director is the accountable authority of the agency. The agency is also tasked with advising the Defence Minister on delivery options, cost and feasibility when projects enter the Integrated Investment Program, and with acting as the main Defence point of contact for the domestic defence industry.

Headliner noted that several large Australian programmes have suffered serious setbacks, citing the first new warships to be built in Adelaide, which it said are not expected until 2032, fourteen years after the contract was awarded. It said the agency is expected to grow to thousands of staff and to oversee contracts worth hundreds of billions of dollars.