Editorial: You may delay but time will not | ADM Aug 2010

Katherine Ziesing | Canberra

We hear a lot about a ‘whole of government approach’ but what does this actually mean?

The Australian Public Service Commission in a 2004 report into the issue defined it as: “public service agencies working across portfolio boundaries to achieve a shared goal and an integrated government response to particular issues.

“Approaches can be formal and informal.

“They can focus on policy development, program management and service delivery.”

Rhetoric from any given department will speak of the benefits of working together to deliver benefits to the Australian people.

The distinguishing characteristic of whole of government work is that there is an emphasis on objectives shared across organisational boundaries.

But can you think of a single time in the past decade where this has been achieved in a coherent fashion at the national level?

Further to that, apart from the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme, when was the last time all levels of government worked together across departments, state lines and responsibilities to deliver a national project of significance?

Please email me if you can come up with a project on this scale as another comparison.

But this is exactly what we are asking of the nation as momentum gathers behind the Future Submarine program.

Many government agencies will need to come together behind Defence to make this program a reality.

Education will have to step up to make sure that technical skills are recognised and supported.

Immigration measures or a change in visa provisions to attract scarce skills.

Release of land and development opportunities from state and local governments as support infrastructure needs are identified.

And the list goes on.

The sheer scale, in both time and money, of the project has yet to really sink into the Australian consciousness.

These are platforms that my grandchildren will operate and sustain.

And yet this opportunity to change the industrial landscape of the nation is in limbo.

The project has no high level champion to guide the process.

A succession of Defence Ministers has not helped the issue but there seems to be a distinct lack of information about the project, though timelines grow more urgent.

Perhaps a fleet of 12 submarines was an aspiration of Force 2030 rather than a goal.

However, the only difference between an aspiration and a goal is planning and action.

Planning is underway.

How about some action?

 

Please, Prime Minister

Gregor Ferguson | Sydney

Shortly after this edition of ADM is published Australians will go to the polls to elect a new Federal government.

Whichever party wins this election will carry the responsibility for Australia’s defence.

It will also carry the responsibility for managing Defence’s acquisition processes and for the health of Australia’s defence industry, which are inextricably intertwined.

The Defence Materiel Organisation (DMO), Capability Development Group (CDG) and ADF take a hard-headed view of industry.

They demand value for money and won’t countenance an industry base that needs to be propped up or protected.

But industry often feels that Defence doesn’t really understand (or perhaps care enough about) the effects of volume, scale and technology on the sustainability of the industry base: to remain an effective ‘fourth arm’ of the nation’s defence, industry needs constantly to be challenged and to keep growing in new directions.

Defence’s self-interest is quite clear: there are critical industry capabilities which are essential to sustain the ADF, so the Australian Defence Organisation as a whole must recognise and understand the fundamental inputs to those capabilities, and ensure these are sustained in turn.

The trick is to identify and strengthen the various factors which deliver an efficient industry base without incurring a drain on the public purse.

A weak, inefficient industry cannot deliver value for money, nor meet the ADF’s needs.

History shows the Defence-Industry relationship delivers its best outcomes when it is overseen by a strongly engaged Minister for Defence Materiel.

But previous appointments have usually been too junior and short-lived to deliver enduring results: they have rarely lasted even the length of a single parliamentary term.

The present incumbent, Greg Combet, has been able to achieve more than his predecessors thanks to the seniority he was granted within the Rudd ministry – reflecting the scale of the acquisition problems he was appointed to solve.

Australia spends over $10 billion a year on capital acquisition and sustainment; the current Defence Capability Plan is worth some $77 billion.

The challenge of spending this money wisely demands permanent ministerial oversight.

Whoever wins the coming election, Australia needs, and industry would warmly welcome, another full-time Minister for Defence Materiel.