Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a tough budget and one we would have preferred not to have had to deliver. The reality is that we have one of the highest rates of increase of spending and debt increase in the developed world. This projected trajectory cannot be maintained, and measures have to be put in place to reverse the trend and get the budget back under control. It is all very well for Labor to bleat about tough measures in the budget, but in most cases they are measures that have been forced on us as a result of the dire position regarding the projected trajectory of Commonwealth spending.

Having said that, there are aspects of the budget that I find troubling. First, I do not believe that we should have increased taxes—and, no, the GP co-payment is not a tax. The GP co-payment is something that I agree with as it will ensure that Medicare remains sustainable. One of the decisions I have real concerns about is buying joint strike fighters, or JSFs, for over $190 million a copy—over $100 million more than Defence is advising the minister and the Commonwealth. I was with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation when the decision was originally made, and the Air Operations Division had just worked up a methodology for comparing contenders. The analysis was never undertaken. The decision was made contrary to advice provided to the defence leadership group by experts in Defence as well is industry and academia. The agendum to the Defence Capability and Investment Committee of March 2002 clearly shows this.

The recommendation was not to proceed with the JSF for cost, capability and schedule reasons, in that there was significant risk of changes or lack of information on all counts. The advice of the DCIC was that the JSF would not be the most expensive option. That is ironic in the context of it being the most expensive fighter on the planet now. Despite expert advice given to the DCIC, Defence, in gung-ho fashion, recommended proceeding with the SDD phase of the JSF project.

I have to admit concern that senior officers who provide critical advice on capabilities that cost billions of dollars have no requirement to have a register of pecuniary interests, as politicians do. Indeed, I am aware of influence peddling by defence contractors with both Defence personnel and some journalists in the media, with all sorts of benefits provided. I believe we should implement a register of what largesse has been provided to senior Defence personnel by defence contractors. We also need to ensure that these personnel do not get jobs in the defence industry immediately they leave the services, gaining very cushy jobs following their retirement from the services. There are too many who get jobs with contractors where they have provided advice favouring that contractor's product. For transparency's sake, this must end.

All contenders that should have been part of a detailed analysis comparing contenders in the new air combat capability were 'switched off', to use Defence parlance, and all that has occurred since is that a watching brief has been maintained. The JSF has remained the solution despite huge blow-outs in cost, significant schedule slips and capability being redefined down. In fact, a Vietnam-era F4E Phantom out-accelerates, out-turns and has a higher speed than the JSF. Yet the current answer remains the JSF, despite the fact that we have seen the shape of threats in the J20 and the T50 from China and Russia-India respectively. These are stealth fighters in the F22 Raptor class, which will significantly overmatch the JSF.

In fact, despite the Lockheed Martin and Defence salesmanship of the JSF, it is not a true fifth-generation fighter. For fifth generation, the critical elements as defined by Lockheed Martin—before they changed the definition to force the JSF to fit the definition—were stealth, supercruise or the ability to cruise at supersonic speed without using thirsty afterburners, super manoeuvrability and sensor fusion. Some of the current European fighters better meet the definition than the JSF, which lacks two of those measures: supercruise and super manoeuvrability. These missing capabilities cannot be put into the design by modifications or upgrades. They are absent forever.

The term 'strike fighter' is also little understood. In globally accepted terminology, it would be a light bomber with some self-defence capability, and indeed that is what its design brief was, hence its initially only carrying two air-to-air missiles internally.

At a time of budget constraint, the JSF cheer squad, who are more interested in toys than anything else, are now pushing for a STOVL variant of the JSF for amphibious assault ships. There is no defined strategic requirement for this, no identified capability gap, just a wish by aficionados. This is no way to ensure that Australia's defence requirements are met and offer the best value for taxpayers' money.

The correct way to come up with the best defence force structure is, first, to define the strategic requirements, or what you expect the defence force to be able to achieve against known capabilities of strategic competitors or potential adversaries. The Howard government's 2000 defence white paper did this well, only to be ignored by the Defence leadership group at the time and replaced with their own agenda. From that, the next level down is to define the capabilities that will be required in order to achieve those requirements. In some cases, the difference may not be immediately obvious. Take World War II, where aircraft carriers more ably filled the capability requirement traditionally achieved by battleships. Thus the focus must be on capability, not platforms.

Once the capability requirements have been drafted, there should be consultation with industry. More particularly, there should be detailed analysis conducted to compare the various options for filling the capability gap—to compare the various capabilities and contenders. In this context, DSTO is critical. At a time when our Defence Force is undergoing a comprehensive restructure, we are at the same time significantly cutting funding to DSTO—at precisely the time this capability should be increased in order to save the taxpayer money.

In this context, the need for a dedicated science minister in order to achieve a coherent policy is critical. On one hand, we are setting up a huge medical research fund to massively increase medical research. How is this coherent policy when we have significant cuts to CSIRO, DSTO, ANSTO, the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. One of the advisers even suggested that a physicist working at CSIRO who lost their job could get one in medical research! I know that some people think that 'physicist' and 'physician' sound similar, but this is too much.

There are a lot of questions with this policy. Is the funding to medical research going to be general or specifically targeted at cancer, Alzheimer's and the like? How are we going to source those researchers? They do not grow on trees and the training required is long and arduous. Very long lead times are required. What is this saying to those might want to become mathematicians, physicists or chemists—hard sciences that are already in crisis?

As an aside, the PM asked me to draw up recommendations on science to improve the area, saying that, of those in parliament, I was the most interested in science. I consulted widely and I worked hard on my recommendations, which I presented a few months ago. They are now up on my website for anyone who wishes to see them—and please feel free to comment to me. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to suggest an improvement in science policy. In fact the reverse would appear to be the case. Not only are we not putting in place policy to improve science but we are putting disincentives in place for people who might consider careers in the hard sciences and maths.

I am not saying that the likes of CSIRO, ANSTO and so on should not be subject to review and restructure. Far from it, I believe there are issues that need to be addressed. Once again I refer to people to my website for some suggestions in that regard. However, it is foolish to have such a policy disincentive while at the same time massively incentivising medical research. This is not just about people's careers, important as that is, or about taxpayers, who have a huge interest in the money they have spent to train this cohort of scientists; this is about our national interest and how to maximise economic and other benefits to our nation.

There appears to be a lack of understanding of how science works. Many advances, including in the medical field, are not the result of directed research but arise out of more fundamental research that was not directed. Think of some of these advances. X-rays, CT scans and radiotherapy for cancer came from fundamental physics—looking at atomic structure. Similarly, magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which was previously called nuclear magnetics resonance imaging, also came from fundamental physics. PET scans resulted from fundamental work on antimatter. These were not the result of some effort coordinated by government to achieve a specific breakthrough. They were the result of work driven by a quest for knowledge and understanding that had fortuitous benefits.

Consider that one-third of the world's economy is based on the work of what some would consider obscure physicists, mainly German, in the first quarter of the 20th century—nearly a century ago. Here I am talking about quantum physics and solid-state electronics, which resulted from fundamental insights. Consider 19th century physicist Michael Faraday. When asked by then Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone what value electricity had, he replied, 'Why, sir, there is every possibility that you will soon be able to tax it.' Consider Albert Einstein in 1916, who rushed back to his wife, also a physicist, saying, 'I have seen a beautiful light' . He was talking about what is known as population inversion in electron energy levels—very esoteric!

That resulted in the first laser in 1960, which, at the time, critics referred to as 'a solution looking for a problem'. Now of course lasers are ubiquitous in Blu Rays, DVDs, CDs and even in communications where lasers are used in fibre optics for communications.

Consider general and special relativity without which an accurate GPS system would be impossible. How could Einstein have known these applications at the time? How could a government have directed research to that end? Indeed, you need look no further than Australia, where wi-fi came about as a result of radio astronomy research. It came about as a result of a failed experiment into finding atomic sized mini black holes. Herein lies the problem with the way that scientific research is being viewed and funded. Where is the coherent coordinated approach to science policy? Herein lies the problem with not having a dedicated science minister.

I have been quiet on the lack of a science minister since I first criticised when the ministry was first announced. It is the first time we have had no science minister since 1931. I am bitterly disappointed that my fears have come to pass. This is a critical portfolio. As I stated at the time, the issue is not necessarily one of a lack of coverage by the ministers responsible for various parts of the portfolio but the fact that there was a lack of coordination, a lack of a single chain of command, a lack of a clear line of communication not only within government but among those working in science. Not a single G8 nation lacks a dedicated science minister and this bodes ill for our future.

Our Western Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, clearly sees the importance of science and recognises the need for an identified single minister responsible. Premier Colin Barnett has seen the portfolio as so critical that he has taken portfolio on himself. These issues of defence and science are critical to our future. We neglect them or downgrade their importance at our peril.

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