Hysteria over defence cuts is unwarranted

The Rudd Government’s order to defence chiefs to slash $10 billion from the defence budget has led to a hysterical reaction from the Liberal Party and its supporters who claim Australia’s national security will be at risk.

This is a bit hysterical. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks the Howard Government threw money at defence while stretching its resources to the limit. Billions were being spent on operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands. Then there was the prohibitive costs associated with the controversial defence procerment processes for the Seasprite, F-18F Super Hornets and the Abrams tanks, plus a blow out in the cost of the new air warfare destroyers - in the post 9-11 world, what the ADF wanted the Howard Government, which wanted to look strong on national security, gladly provided with alomost no questions asked.

On top of that, the civilian Department of Defence, which the Howard Government itself trimmed shortly after coming to power in 1996, was was decentralised leading to inefficiencies in supply procurement.  A lot of the cost was offset by the sale of defence land and assets and the privatisation of services to the ADF from catering to maintenance.

Interestingly, in 2005, the former deputy secretary for Defence and pricipal author of the 2000 Defence White Paper, Hugh White warned that Australia was throwing too much money into the defence budget, without monitoring the way the money was being spent.

He concluded: After last week’s (February 2005) unsettling economic news, and uncertainty about the US economy, it would be bad strategy to base our plans on an airy assumption that the economy will keep growing indefinitely as fast as it has since 2000. And future economic growth will require big spending in other areas such as infrastructure. So ministers will be careful about locking themselves in to big-spending promises for Defence even further into the future.

Three years later, and it seems that White was spot on - though it’s the Rudd Government that is left to correct the unrealistic levels of spending that did not result in any real improvement in Australia’s defence capability.

While the Liberals and interest groups such as the Australian Defence Association will say otherwise, finding $10 billion to slash from the artificially bloated defence force budget, without compromising the ADF’s capabilities, is necessary and won’t be as difficult it sounds.