She oversees billions of dollars' worth of military contracts, but recently promoted cabinet minister Melissa Price has so far missed out on an invitation to join the powerful National Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC).
The omission of the Defence Industry Minister from NSC means Western Australia's representation in the critical ministerial grouping has fallen from three to just one, at a time her home state is fighting to wrestle a lucrative submarine contract from South Australia.
Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Melissa Price, who has served as Defence Industry Minister since 2019, would be elevated to his cabinet, which now includes a record-equalling seven women.
"The Defence Industry portfolio has previously been in cabinet and when minister [Christopher] Pyne held that portfolio, amongst others, and he did an excellent job setting up this procurement program that we're involved in now," Mr Morrison said last week.
Mr Pyne is believed to have attended almost every NSC meeting while defence industry minister due to the high tempo of military projects being announced at the time.
The NSC is charged with making decisions on major foreign policy and national security issues, border protection policy, as well as classified matters relating to the intelligence community.
Typically, the NSC is comprised of the prime minister, deputy prime minister, treasurer, foreign minister, attorney-general, home affairs minister, defence minister and finance minister, with other ministers invited to attend when required.
In 2016, Mr Pyne lobbied former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to join the NSC when he was appointed defence industry minister, a period which saw billions of dollars' worth of lucrative military projects go to his home state of South Australia.
When approached by the ABC, Ms Price said she would be happy to serve on NSC if asked to by Mr Morrison.
"I have a shared responsibility with [Defence] Minister [Peter] Dutton to deliver the Morrison government's $270 billion investment in defence capability," she said.
"My number-one priority is supporting Australia's growing defence industry and the thousands of jobs that go with that".
Asked about a possible future appointment to NSC, Ms Price said: "that is a question for the Prime Minister".
"I am already a member of a number of other defence-related committees and would be pleased to serve in any capacity the Prime Minister sees fit," she said.
In March, the ABC revealed the Prime Minister had recently formed a powerful new cabinet committee to tackle problems with Australia's multi-billion-dollar Naval Shipbuilding Plan, which Ms Price serves on.
Last month, the ABC also revealed newly appointed Assistant Defence Minister Andrew Hastie had not yet received his charter letter from the Prime Minister setting out his formal ministerial responsibilities.
In 2020, Western Australia boasted three members on the NSC, before the retirement of former finance minister Mathias Cormann, and the subsequent demotion of defence minister Linda Reynolds and attorney-general Christian Porter.
Newly appointed Attorney-General Michaela Cash is now Western Australia's sole permanent member of NSC, which also includes one South Australian frontbencher, Finance Minister Simon Birmingham.
Figures inside Australia's defence industry say the reduced number of Western Australian ministers on NSC could hurt the state's chances of snatching the lucrative future maintenance work on Collins Class submarines from South Australia.
When visiting Adelaide last week, the Prime Minister said the decision on Collins Class full cycle docking did not need "to be addressed at this point" because "there are still many years before we are in that position".
