Peta Credlin: Our military is seriously under-prepared for a more dangerous world

While Australia is spending $50bn a year on the armed forces, there is serious doubt that we have effective military capability in a world that has become increasingly dangerous, writes Peta Credlin.

As someone who once worked for a defence minister, something is seriously wrong with Australia’s defences when the existing minister slams his own department in parliament.

That’s what happened last week. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who is also the Defence Minister, said on Thursday that Australia’s defence bureaucracy “had a long way to go” before it could claim to have a “culture of excellence”.

He went on to admit “that we need to be faster in our decision-making” and “faster in our delivery”.

This is the minister whose first act when coming into government was to commission a strategic review, only then to request a further review of our naval acquisition program – and that’s still pending – before making any actual decision.

In a sign of rising panic about the state of our military, junior Defence Minister Pat Conroy also said on Thursday that the government would introduce an armed drone into service later this year but wouldn’t reveal anything more – type, cost or numbers – “for security reasons”.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, Richard Marles. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

This was after earlier reports that Defence planned to take eight years to study and acquire the offensive and defensive drone capability that has played such a big part in the Ukraine war – and that part of this could involve training birds of prey.

I kid you not.

Training eagles while the Houthi rebels are currently using drones to attack vessels in the Red Sea.

While Australia is spending $50bn a year on the armed forces, there is serious doubt that we have any effective military capability, other than our two special forces regiments whose morale must have taken a heavy hit from post-Afghanistan allegations of war crimes.

Over the past two decades, our only serious naval acquisitions have been two helicopter carriers, which have mainly been used in disaster-relief operations, and three air warfare destroyers that are capable enough but were said to be by far the most expensive-ever warships of their type due to the navy’s habit of never being satisfied with any actual existing design.

A royal eagle catches a drone during a military exercise at the Mont-de-Marsan airbase, France. Defence is considering training such birds of prey. Picture: Georges Gobet/AFP

A sign of just how thin and decrepit our naval capability has become was the government’s pre-Christmas refusal to send a frigate to the Red Sea in response to a US request.

This is the first time in many decades that we have refused a US request, allegedly because we are focused on our region, but more likely because of personnel shortages and fears about our ships’ defences against swarming drones.

One of our eight ageing Anzac-class frigates has already been withdrawn from service and there are fears two more might follow because we lack the sailors to keep them operational.

Then there’s the scandal of the 45 Taipan helicopters – ordered from Europe under the Howard government because we didn’t want US defence suppliers to take us for granted – that the military has never liked because of their difficulty coping in dusty environments, and that have now been prematurely withdrawn from service, stripped and buried in the ground.

This is despite the Ukrainians requesting them to help with the medi-evacuation of their wounded.

The Tiger attack helicopters – also bought from Europe about the same time – have never been deployed in operations due to “years of poor fleet performance”.

Australia’s Tiger attack helicopters have never been deployed in operations due to “years of poor fleet performance”. Picture: Cameron Bates

And, yes, the Albanese government deserves credit for turning its predecessor’s AUKUS agreement into a credible plan to get our first nuclear-powered subs within about a decade but, in the meantime, our capability will be severely limited while the old Collins-class subs are substantially rebuilt to last the distance.

All this at a time when the global situation is more dangerous than in many decades. Part of the problem is that we’ve never really been sure what our defence forces are for.

Are they to support our allies standing up for freedom in distant parts of the world, as we did so magnificently in two world wars, or are they to sink an invasion fleet before it reaches Australia?

What we really need, if we are to be a secure and credible country, are armed forces that can do both – but that would require a level of spending, equipment and personnel that’s hitherto been thought politically impossible.

Instead, we’ve maintained a small and highly professional force that’s just capable of making a niche contribution to US operations – paying our alliance dues so that we can continue to rely on the US to do the heavy lifting in any serious conflict.

Australia is seriously under-prepared – psychologically as well as militarily – for a much more dangerous world. Every time we teach our young people that we should be ashamed of our history and our flag, I wonder who will even be prepared to defend it when that time arrives, as I fear it will.

We are only free now because generations before us made sacrifices that so many today don’t even respect, let alone could match.

TIME TO PUT A STOP TO GENDER DYSPHORIA MADNESS

Last week, the South Australian Premier squibbed the chance to have a proper inquiry into the treatment of gender dysphoria, the condition where people feel trapped in the wrong body.

An independent upper house MP had proposed one, several conservative Labor MPs wanted one, and the Coalition supported one – but the supposedly right-wing Labor leader, Peter Malinauskas, surrendered to his Green-Left colleagues and ruled it out. This is the third time a proper inquiry into irreversible and possibly very damaging physical treatments for a psychological condition has been rejected due to pressure from the trans lobby.

Thanks to constant pushing from the trans lobby, GPs are expected to “affirm” a child or adolescent’s own assessment that they’ve been born with the wrong body. Picture: iStock

The Senate rejected an inquiry proposed by One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and the Victorian parliament rejected one put forward by independent Liberal Moira Deeming. Why are we so scared of probing the facts behind the massive numbers of children and adolescents seeking to overcome biological reality?

In SA, for instance, there were 58 children and adolescents being treated for gender dysphoria in 2020, but the number had more than doubled to 149 just one year later. There are similar trends in every state.

If anorexic patients insist that they are grotesquely overweight, doctors don’t normally take their word for it and prescribe appetite suppressants. Or bariatric surgery. Instead of affirming their distorted body image, their condition is treated with care and compassion.

But, thanks to constant pushing from the trans lobby, GPs are expected to “affirm” a child or adolescent’s own assessment that they’ve been born with the wrong body.

As a result, hundreds of young people, who we wouldn’t trust to vote, to drink, to drive a car, or legally to have sex, have made the shattering and life-altering decision to take powerful drugs that could cause sterility, or to approve – often without parental knowledge, let alone permission – having radical irreversible surgery.

It’s a scandal that we’ve allowed this madness to go largely unchecked up until now, especially after an inquiry in the UK has led to the closing down of the infamous Tavistock clinic, and the abandonment of so-called “affirmative care” for these mostly deeply troubled teenagers.

Watch Peta on Credlin on Sky News, weeknights at 6pm

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Our military is seriously under-prepared for a more dangerous world