When Linda Reynolds became Defence Minister on May 29, 2019 she inherited a long established ministerial culture of almost total support of the military and a willingness to cover up mistakes, particularly when it came to defence equipment.
Because minister after minister embraced “blind-eye-cover up” techniques, the culture became deeply embedded into the department.
Linda Reynolds, a former distinguished army officer, embraced the culture with a skill that matched any of her predecessors but the sheer magnitude of them---they easily exceed $300 billion or more than the Covid outlays---trash our budget planning and leave the nation seriously weak in the coming decade in a region that has become more dangerous.
Cabinet is rightly addressing the social cover-up culture that was highlighted by the events in the Defence Minister’s office, but have yet to grasp the magnitude of the wider cover-up that it masks.
When she became Defence Minister Reynolds was handed three festering problems, two of which required an immediate cover up while the third, longer term, would also need to be covered up.
Accordingly, she announced that the Joint Strike Fighter/F35 was both on time and on budget – conveniently forgetting that the initial budgets were based on it being delivered some 10 years earlier at a fraction of the current price.
When Australia agreed to purchase the aircraft, we hoped it would maintain the regional air superiority that the F-111 had delivered. The Americans had a similar hope but the Joint Strike Fighter, while it can perform a number of important functions, does not deliver regional air superiority because better aircraft have been developed by the Russians and Chinese.
The Americans have recognised this and have cut back their JSF orders.
As my regular readers know the second cover up was the submarines, and Reynolds again showed cover-up skill by announcing that the original French tender was $50 billion in 2016 dollars when the written document shows the base tender below $25 billion in 2016 dollars.
It’s true there were additional items such as the combat system and infrastructure. Although the Australian defence community knows what was written in the document, both the government and the French are desperately trying to stop that written figure coming out because it is the iceberg tip that opens up what actually happened and how the French completely outmanoeuvred us.
We will discover the construction cost will greatly exceed $100 billion (and the operational bill brings the total cost above $220 billion. The lead-acid battery driven vessels will not be available in quantity until beyond 2040 when technology will have moved on.
The third defence equipment blunder that required cover-up has not been well documented. When Australia asked for tenders for the nine frigates, it stipulated that we wanted a vessel that was “in the water” and proven. We wanted to maximise Australian content. The Italian and Spanish tenders offered such a vessel but the British ship was not as advanced.
There was a lot of “rule Britannia” in the negotiations so, with a sense of history, we chose the British vessel even though it was more costly.
At some point we discovered that the base British vessel will not take the required US combat system plus the Australian radar system. So it’s now being completely redesigned.
The already high tender cost has risen 30 per cent to $45 billion and will go a lot higher. And local content is being slashed which means that we will not have extensive local infrastructure. The Canadians have similar problems but there is no cover-up.
The Americans took the Italian tender which is turning out very well because not only will their frigates be built at half the cost of the Australian vessels on the basis of our $45 billion current estimate. But given in reality we are designing a new frigate on a cost plus basis we might pay three or four times the American cost.
Like the submarines, the redesigning takes time and will leave Australia dangerously exposed in frigate capacity in the next decade. And the skilled Italians gave the Americans 98 per cent US content whereas our local content is being slashed.
These three blunders mean we don’t have the defence capability that we previously had in the region, but post Covid we have also skyrocketed our forward estimates of debt. We are now more dependent on the Americans then we have been since World War Two. That means we must stop trying to design new vessels and synchronise our defence equipment with existing proven equipment that is combatable with the Americans. And so we must join with them in strategies to overcome the shortcomings of the JSF. The Americans thought we were stupid to go with the French in submarines so we need to synchronise with their submarine investment. That may require us going nuclear. Maybe we should have the same frigates as the Americans. We are not achieving a defence capability in the region that we should have gained given the amounts we are spending
Accordingly, we must now look at our role in the region. With greatly reduced defence capacity we may need to see ourselves as a trading nation rather than a commentator on our trading partners.
The Chinese, with justification, think were are simply dumb which may be a reason why they treat us with contempt.
My parliamentary mates tell me the new Assistant Defence Minister Andrew Hastie actually does understand the basic thrust of the problems but they are not sure he understands just how serious the mistakes have become in the post-Covid world.
According to his supporters, the new Liberal candidate for Menzies, commando-turned-barrister Keith Wolahan has done the work and understands the horror.
Cabinet needs to understand that while investigating culture cover-ups gains headlines, the future of our children and grandchildren is being put at risk by the Defence cover-ups.
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