#47 Australia’s Food Security Play: Land-Based Aquaculture | CEO Dan Richards
This episode of Intelligence Optimised takes you to the floodplains of the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory, home to one of Australia’s most significant aquaculture operations - Humpty Doo Barramundi. Dan Richards - the farm’s director sits down with host Todd Crowley, to uncover how a family-run enterprise has grown into a key contributor to national food security.From the site of the failed 1950s Humpty Doo Rice Project to today’s thriving barramundi operation, we explore the lessons learned from early challenges and the practical strategies that made success possible in a tropical climate. The conversation spans production processes, market positioning, sustainability practices, and the farm’s role in building local employment and skills.Listeners will hear frank discussion on the intersection of agriculture, regional capability, and Indo-Pacific trade. We look at how a premium Australian-grown fish competes in domestic and export markets, and why sustainable production methods are central to both environmental stewardship and long-term economic viability.For agrifood industry planners and policy advisers, the episode offers clear, actionable insights into scaling operations, securing supply chains, and aligning production with strategic national interests. These lessons carry weight not just for aquaculture but for any sector seeking to lift resilience in remote and regional settings.Find deeper briefs inside Vaxa Bureau.
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#46 How AI is Rewriting the Playbook for Government Service Delivery | Curtis West
How AI in government cuts queues, enables 24/7 support, and strengthens disaster planning without getting stuck in procurement?Artificial intelligence is no longer a “someday” tool. In this episode of Intelligence Optimised, host Todd Crowley sits down with Curtis West to unpack how AI in government can lift service delivery across councils and small national governments alike. We cover where machine learning fits (forecasting, anomaly detection, asset planning) and where AI agents change the game - moving beyond basic chatbots to actions that help residents complete payments, renew permits, or lodge applications.The discussion starts with first principles: ML for optimisation and decisions from data; generative tools and agents for natural, human-centred interaction. From there, we go straight to use cases: ✔️Licensing and permit renewals to cut queues; ✔️24/7 citizen support that answers and acts; ✔️Predictive maintenance using IoT and vision (even pothole detection on garbage trucks); ✔️Disaster logistics that model options in seconds rather than weeks. Brisbane City Council provides the scale reference;✔️Mauritius and Sri Lanka show how smaller Indo-Pacific nations can leapfrog through agile moves and targeted investment.We also deal with the hard bits that stall projects - procurement cycles that lag fast-moving tech, and data silos that starve models. The remedy is a measured pathway: run small, measurable pilots; communicate results; and build from there. Curtis’ Eliminate - Support - Extend model helps leaders stage the work: eliminate manual, error-prone tasks; support staff with decision tools; then extend capability with new services like 24/7 assistance.If you lead a state or local agency, or run service delivery in a council, this episode gives you a clear starting point: pick high-volume, low-complexity pain points, design a pilot with hard metrics, and address procurement and data issues up front. The national-interest payoff is real - faster services, better resilience, and citizens who see government work for them across Australia, New Zealand and the wider Indo-Pacific.Find deeper briefs inside Vaxa Bureau.
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#45 Zero-Risk Procurement ? Rethinking Australian Defence | Aaron Pollard - Part 2
How much capability is Australia leaving on the table by chasing “zero-risk” procurement?In Part 1, Aaron Pollard laid out why real security starts with culture, not compliance and how SMEs often carry the biggest burden.Now, in Part 2 of this Intelligence Optimised conversation, host Todd Crowley goes deeper with Aaron to expose the cost of risk aversion and the internal blockages slowing down delivery.Key threads✔️ Security culture v clearance culture – why risk-based controls beat a decades-old tick-box mindset.✔️ Defence-industry friction – uneven implementation costs, secret-material rules that hit SMEs harder than primes, and the dreaded “frozen middle” that stalls projects.✔️ Sovereign capability at stake – guided-weapons supply crunch, AUKUS submarine delays, and the talent shortfall throttling shipyards and drone lines alike.✔️ Practical fixes – drip-feed training, message-of-the-month comms, walking the factory floor, and a simple “yes—if” policy that turns security into an enabler.✔️ Effect-based procurement – ditch equipment wish-lists; start with the effect the war-fighter needs, then weigh options against risk, cost and timeline.📍 Why it mattersDefence planners and security managers will recognise the rising strategic tempo in the Indo-Pacific. Continuing to treat security and procurement as exercises in risk elimination leaves forces waiting - and adversaries watching. A risk-based approach, woven through supply-chain, ICT and workforce policy, can deliver guided weapons, autonomous systems and submarines faster, while still protecting classified data and national credibility.Whether you sit in CASG, an SME cyber team or a prime’s bid office, this episode builds on Part 1 to frame clear steps that lift security culture and keep capability on schedule - vital for Australia’s sovereign capability edge in a contested Indo-Pacific.Find deeper briefs and tools inside Vaxa Bureau.
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#44 Security Culture in Practice: Defence-Ready from the Inside Out | Aaron Pollard
Hit Essential Eight, guard IP, and keep your Defence contracts - practical tactics for Aussie defence SMEs.Small and mid-sized firms sit at the sharp end of Australia’s defence supply chain. They build smart kit, hold sensitive data and keep prime contractors moving - yet many still treat security as a box-ticking chore. In this episode of Intelligence Optimised, host Todd Crowley sits down with veteran security strategist Aaron Pollard to spell out what “good” now looks like. Key talking points✔️Why cyber security outranks physical guards and gates in 2025.✔️The jump from Top 4 to Essential Eight maturity level 2 and what it costs.✔️Using Defence Industry Development Strategy grants to fund your uplift.✔️Mapping and marking intellectual property so it doesn’t walk out the door.✔️Leveraging ASIO outreach and insider-threat training to turn staff into sensors.✔️Scoping controls only to defence-facing networks to save cash.✔️How workforce shortages and ASD’s Red Spice program are pushing salaries north.📍Why it mattersDefence expects the same security baseline from a five-person CNC shop as it does from the primes - fail to meet it and your purchase orders disappear. Aaron breaks down the hidden levers SMEs can pull: narrow the system boundary, pick the right managed service provider, and use grant money only after a Defence-issued Maturity Action Plan. The result: compliance you can actually afford, and information assurance your customers will bank on.Whether you manage a niche software team in Adelaide or a composites plant in Brisbane, this conversation hands you the playbook to cut risk, lift resilience and keep delivering capability across the Indo-Pacific.Find deeper briefs and step-by-step guides inside Vaxa Bureau.
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#43 Nature on the Balance Sheet: Risk, Return and Responsibility | Tony O'Grady
How natural capital accounting lets CFOs price ecosystem risk, secure Indo-Pacific supply chains and find new value.Nature underpins every tonne shipped, meal served and unit of power generated across the Indo-Pacific - yet its true worth still hides off the books.In this episode of Intelligence Optimised Podcasts, CSIRO’s Dr Tony O’Grady joins host Todd Crowley to unpack natural capital accounting: a rigorous method that treats forests, water and soils as real assets alongside plant, property and equipment.Key points for finance and risk leaders:✔️ Map ecosystem dependencies in supply chains - why fertiliser phosphorus or coastal mangroves are as material as diesel prices.✔️ Use TNFD-aligned metrics to convert ecosystem services into dollars, then slot them into balance-sheets, cash-flow models and board packs.✔️ See how companies like Forico, BHP and Kering publish environmental profit-and-loss statements and what that does to cost of capital.✔️ Understand disclosure momentum - TNFD, TCFD and IFRS - and why waiting invites higher finance costs and shareholder activism.✔️ Spot the geopolitical edge: unpriced degradation fuels migration, food insecurity and defence flashpoints from Nauru to the South China Sea.Strategic takeaways✔️ Early movers gain cheaper capital, steadier inputs and brand trust while competitors scramble under new compliance.✔️ The board, not the sustainability team, must own nature risk; CFOs already have the valuation tools.✔️ Reliable data are emerging - CSIRO’s Natural Capital Handbook and spatial datasets make entry affordable.For defence planners, agribusiness exporters and infrastructure owners, the signal is clear: price nature now or pay later.Find deeper briefs and decision tools inside Vaxa Bureau.
In this series our Indo-Pacific experts navigate the complexities of safeguarding our present and fortifying our future in these uncertain times. Our focus is on delivering expert analyses and insights under the national security umbrella, to help you: "Be Ready for Today. Prepared for Tomorrow." This series is crafted for a discerning audience, including defence professionals, policymakers, academics, technology experts , logistics and supply chain managers, public health officials, and food and agribusiness purveyors.It's designed for those who seek to stay ahead of the curve in understanding and implementing the cutting-edge strategies and technologies that define global security today and shape its evolution tomorrow.The “Vaxa Bureau - Intelligence; Optimised Podcast” is a part of the Vaxa Grow Series and brought to you by the Vaxa Bureau team. Find out more: https://vaxabureau.com/
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