The Federal Defence Minister wants Australia to get more involved in exporting military hardware, with a review launched into the current practice of keeping gear here in the interests of safety.

At the moment, a national defence export control office bars a majority of potential exports of defence industry products for security reasons, meaning the companies that make the goods can only really sell them here.

Federal Defence Minister David Johnston says he wants to grab the missed opportunity.

“We want you to invest, we want you to make a profit and we want to assist you to export,” Senator Johnston said to manufacturers in Adelaide last week.

He said some companies just want to sell their wares to the Middle East, for example, but cannot due to restrictions.

“I think that's an area where I am going to make some significant changes in the way we go about our business,” Johnston said.

“So the challenge for me facilitating what you do out there in this very important area is to have an export office that is quite dynamic, that anticipates the problems, and understands that you must succeed in your commercial endeavour.”

Defence Teaming Centre chief executive officer Chris Burns said he has only ever seen one case of the export control office preventing a shipment on such grounds.

“We need to look more closely into what the causes are before we say it's a particular office,” Burns said.

“I would certainly say the experience we had with a South Australian company, it wasn't the export control office, it was the [former Defence] minister sitting on the clearance.”