By the time ADM readers pick up this edition, the federal
election should be well and truly done. Whoever has formed government will be
picking their front bench and hopefully bedding down into the work of running
the country. Whichever party, forms government, a new defence minister will be
in place as Defence Minister Stephen Smith is stepping down at this election.
The likely contenders are Dr Mike Kelly from the Labor side
of the house and Senator David Johnston from the Coalition. But what would you
do if by some twist of fate YOU became defence minister? What would your
priorities be? Would a new White Paper be on the agenda? Would you aim to
continue the current reform program? Or perhaps gutting the Defence Materiel
Organisation and starting again on many fronts is the way you would go? Aim for
funding of two per cent of GDP and look surprised and aggrieved when it doesn’t
happen for a decade or more? All of these options are on the table as I write.
In early August I took part in a debate titled “The US
Alliance is Australia’s best defence” arguing for the affirmative alongside the
US Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich. On the negative was Professor Zhu Feng,
deputy director of the Centre for International and Strategic Studies at Peking
University and Major General Jim Molan (ret), playing the devil’s advocate
given his very public support of the US Alliance. A live audience of 850 people
had voted on the issue before the debate had begun. The vote was split evenly
between agree, disagree and undecided at this time.
The debate was well played on both sides but as soon as
Molan brought in clever quotes of sex, national pride and self-reliance, the
negative had won the day. Molan’s argument was partly based on ASPI’s Mark
Thomson who pointed out that the Australian Defence Force was ‘free-riding’ on
the US in terms of how Australia funds its own defence and the role it plays in
the region.
While this has never been spelt out in such terms by the
government or Defence, the sentiment rang true with the audience. The ability
of the ADF to defend Australia from any and all threats was paramount therefore
the US Alliance was not our best defence. Unfortunately, pointing out that we
simply can’t afford such an approach did little to sway the crowd back to the
side of the Alliance. The idea had taken hold and the affirmative lost the day.
Ideas are a powerful thing. There are powerful ideas on both
sides of the political spectrum at the moment as to how defence and in
particular defence procurement should be run. The idea that Defence can only
have two sides of the three-sided magic triangle when it comes to project
delivery is embedded. You can have two of the three: cost, schedule or 100 per
cent capability; pick which two you prefer.
The DMO has been performing well on cost and capability but
schedule is still an issue. One only has to pick up any of the ANAO Major
Project reports to read just how much schedule is costing Defence and the
taxpayer. Though the schedule issue has become so ingrained that in some
respects, the services now account for it in their workforce planning. They’d
be insane not to really.
As has been pointed out in these pages before, the economic
outlook for Defence is not likely to change greatly over the next 4-5 years
regardless of who forms government this month. Both parties have outlined how
they would like to see Defence funding reach two per cent of GDP as soon as it
is economically responsible to do so. Neither party has been particularly
forthcoming on what those circumstances might look like. But there is no
existential threat to the Australian way of life.
The 9-11 decade has come and gone and with it, the funding
priority that Defence had enjoyed.
The complete lack of votes that Defence represents is
obvious. When concerns were raised about the fate of shipbuilding in Australia
over the past few months, the silence from government was deafening. If the
government will not save thousands of jobs in the car industry, what hope does
a few hundred shipbuilding jobs have? The government has the right to make
decisions based on their priorities and defence industry is clearly not a
priority.
Any government will have to walk that fine line between
economic responsibility and defending the national interest. The national
interest is protected by the ADF that is supported by a healthy industrial
base. The health of that base depends on certainty from government around their
decision making timelines and funding priorities.
So if you were Defence Minister, what would YOUR priorities
be? I’d like to publish the best responses in a forthcoming issue of ADM, so
start writing.
