Defence jobs cuts leaves Army Bushmasters stripped of top-class technology before Ukraine
A major national security project designing and maintaining ‘world first’ defence technology has been gutted to save money in the federal budget.
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A major national security project designing and maintaining “world first” technology for Army vehicles including the Bushmasters, has been gutted to save money in the federal budget.
The Department of Defence withheld $110 million in contractual payments to the Land 200-2 project resulting in the loss of 38 jobs, mainly from Queensland, this month.
Staff working on the high-level security project were told of the redundancies last week, after the budget and days before 20 Bushmaster armoured personnel carriers, fitted out at Eagle Farm, in Brisbane, were packed up to be sent to Ukraine this week.
Land 200-2, a project to modernise the Australian Defence Force with digital technology, stalled last week after the Defence Department revelations the payments of $110 million were not made over 18 months.
The project gave army chiefs on the ground real-time locations of tanks and personnel and was described in 2017, by then-Chief of Army Lieutenant General Angus Campbell as the Army’s “highest priority”.
The jobs cut were with an Australian company called Elbit Systems Limited Australia.
ELSA managing director retired Major General Paul McLachlan told staff in Brisbane last week the cuts affected Army software upgrades, its help desk and maintenance support.
He said the federal government’s refusal to pay over the past 18 months triggered a company restructure which resulted in the job redundancies.
News of the jobs losses came three days after the federal budget was handed down increasing defence spending by about 2 per cent.
The cuts to defence acquisitions added $588 million in new money to the overall $4.2 billion increase in federal spending on defence over the four-year forward estimates.
The redundancies were far reaching, affecting many departments from software engineers in Melbourne to those manning help desks and carrying out maintenance in southeast Queensland.
One former Queensland defence IT worker, who could not be named, questioned why the cuts had come as the federal government was sending the Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine after the federal government had taken a hard line stance on the Russian invasion.
“There is a war going on in Europe and Australia has taken sides and is contributing personnel carriers using our technology and yet they have cut our funding and spending in the Land-200 program,” he said.
“What we designed in Australia allows combat vehicles to be on a network that shares information about the location of our personnel and the location of enemy operatives on the ground.
“It means that the top General Command level in the Australian Defence Force can tap into the technology and see what is happening out on the battlefield and allows them to alert other operatives.
“Axing this funding meant cuts to installing world-first 3D technology inside vehicles so personnel can view what is happening behind them while their vehicle is moving forward.
“No army in the world has this technology and now Australia won’t have it either.
“It’s a disgrace especially after the French submarine contract debacle.”
A Senate estimates inquiry in June heard that the Land-200 program came under fire from the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) in May 2019 for exceeding original budgetary and capability remits.
The senate estimates committee, headed by senators Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and Penny Wong, heard that some of the technology was stripped out of combat vehicles because the Battlefield Command Systems under Land 200 (Phase 3) had not passed Defence Force approval.
A former Land 200 staff member, who could not be named, said it was believed the technology was not approved because ELSA’s parent company, Elbit, had headquarters in Israel.
“Millions of dollars was spent ensuring sovereignty of the technology that was designed and installed in Brisbane by ELSA, which is an Australian company,” the worker said.
“There was no issue with security for the technology as the Australian branch of Elbit is a separate company that has its own security policies, infrastructure and auditing to Australian standards.
“What has happened has put lives, and now jobs, in jeopardy along with wasting hundreds of billions of dollars.”
The retired Major General McLachlan was not available for comment at the time of publication.
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