Modern history shows Australia’s Coalition Government is incapable of effective defence planning and military hardware procurement.
The latest failed attempt to upgrade Australia’s submarines – which has wasted multiple billions of borrowed dollars and eight years – follows a string of Coalition disasters.
That is according to an article published today by Independent Australia which details successful contracts for military hardware completed by Labor Governments and the succession of failures by the coalition of the Liberal and National parties.
Failure at the top
Australian governments have traditionally appointed defence ministers with a view to having them serve over the long term. Jim Killen was Malcolm Fraser’s Defence Minister for more than six years. Kim Beazley served for five years and four months, Robert Ray for five years and eleven months, both in the Hawke-Keating years. Stephen Smith had held the portfolio for three years when the Rudd/Gillard Government lost office in 2013.
In contrast, the current Coalition has had six defence ministers in eight years, serving an average of one year and four months. It has had seven ministers for defence industry. None has had the required experience or capability to manage the portfolio.
F-111 tactical strike aircraft
The Menzies Coalition Government contracted to buy F-111 fighter jets in 1963. Due to continual bungles – technical, contractual and political – the aircraft were not delivered until 1973. They were plagued with problems thereafter and retired ten years before expected.
Although Australia engaged in conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and East Timor over that period, F-111s were never deployed in combat.
Collins Class Submarines
The Hawke Labor Government commissioned six Collins Class submarines in 1987 and ensured Australia participated in the project at every stage. Construction began in South Australia in 1990 in collaboration with a Swedish shipbuilder.
The six subs will now remain in service until the mid-2040s, subject, of course, to when the Coalition loses office.
This demonstrates Australia can build its own vessels – which last – when it has a government with vision and competence.
Contract with France for attack class submarines
As shown here, here, and here, the Coalition has mismanaged replacing the Collins Class subs from the outset. In 2016, former Prime Minister Turnbull signed a contract to buy 12 French Shortfin Barracudas. The deal ensured billions of euros per year would flow from Australia to France for the next fifty years at least. France’s obligations under the contract were ill-defined. The French, who could not believe their luck, labeled it “le contrat du siècle" – the deal of the century.
It was. Only once every hundred years does a customer come along as incompetent as Australia’s Coalition.
Finally, last week, after wasting an estimated 3.5 billion dollars – all of it borrowed – Australia welched on the deal. The Morrison Government, if it stays in office, will now repeat the costly process, this time with an American or British shipbuilder.
The article analyses several other Labor Government successes and Coalition failures.
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Today’s Independent Australia article is available here for free:
https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/submarine-fiasco-the-latest-in-a-long-list-of-coalition-military-failures,15536
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“Alan Austin is a great Australian journalist and,
I think, a pirate. I steal Alan Austin’s findings all the time.”
~ Jordan Shanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtV-2X4BjQI