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

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade I present the committee's report, incorporating supplementary remarks, entitled Review of the Defence Annual Report 2010-2011. I note that Defence has improved its performance in terms of preparation for questions asked by the committee and has responded more quickly to questions on notice. There are, however, issues that greatly concern me, even more so in this time of funding shortages for Defence.

There are a litany of failed or poorly-performing programs and capabilities within Defence, but there appears little in the way of lessons learnt. Within the Defence organisation there is a culture of circling the wagons when it comes to criticism. Circling the wagons is to be expected in combat, where you would expect members to do all that they can to defend their colleagues. However, it is unhelpful when it comes to engaging expert critics.

In the majority of cases, critics are not 'the enemy' but seek to improve Defence's capabilities. A case in point is the Joint Strike Fighter or JSF project. I have used this as a brief case study in additional comments. The fact is that the JSF has been criticised for about a decade by Air Power Australia. Defence has chosen to play the man, not the ball, with persistent denigration of Air Power Australia. I have heard variously from Defence that APA does not have access to the classified information and hence cannot analyse the JSF, and I wonder how Defence can then analyse the capabilities of Russian, Chinese et cetera aircraft given that they are hardly going to hand Defence classified briefing documents on their capabilities.

I have also heard, from another perspective within the force, that APA are really bright guys who are effectively giving threat nations the heads-up on classified details of the JSF. The irony of these countervailing perspectives is not lost on me. Unfortunately, this undermining of APA's credibility does have an effect on some colleagues who have not compared and contrasted Defence's performance with theirs. Despite thousands of staff within DMO with access to all the classified information, the costing models, development schedules et cetera available from Lockheed Martin, Defence has proved hopeless on, at a minimum, the issues of cost and schedule.

Defence has either misled the parliament while telling the truth to the executive or it has been hopelessly optimistic—for example, if Defence were to have been taken at its word circa 2005 we should already have JSFs in service for about $65 million each. Instead, we will see an IOC of late 2018 at the earliest, with a price of well over $130 million each, despite the strength of our dollar. Mislead or be incompetent—I do not know which is worse. And then we are supposed to believe LockMart's spin on the capabilities, mouthed very often by those in Defence who are acting more as sales people for LockMart than applying the due diligence and caveat emptor required. Cost and schedule are not causes, they are some of the consequences of a program gone wrong. Think of blow-outs in building a home, for example. The JSF is a symptom of a much bigger problem and there are a litany of other programs similarly afflicted. They are symptoms of a much bigger problem. Think of the Super Seasprite helicopters—over a billion dollars spent and nothing to show for it.

There appears to be an issue of a lack of communication within Defence. Defence said on the tanker project 'everyone viewed it as a much easier program than what it was'. Similar statements have been made on the Wedgetail as a way of excusing the ongoing problems. However, an industry technical risk assessment in 1999 identified all of the risks that have now materialised with Wedgetail, but they were ignored and the contractors were 'shot down'. Why is Air Marshal Brown not aware of this? Take night-vision goggles, something the commandos complained of to this committee in Afghanistan and at Holsworthy. Yet the Chief of Army, when asked about it, was unaware of the problem. Once again, why?

In conclusion, it is critical that Defence not only engages with but also engages in a contractual sense those independent experts who have demonstrated greater competence in capability and risk assessment than Defence has demonstrated. If this does not occur, along with a host of other reforms, Defence is destined to remain the underperforming organisation it is now—risking Australia's security.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Defence gets a bad rap. It seems like every week we read a story about a Defence capability that is overdue or overbudget or allegations of sexual harassment or assault. I applaud the constant questioning and scrutiny of Defence, and have spoken out in this chamber about the deplorable behaviour by a minority of its personnel. Last year or earlier this year I spoke about the regiment that had those disgusting comments about women on its Facebook. When I was in Afghanistan I commented about a sticker that was either of a naked female or of female in a bikini. I commented on it and said I thought it was inappropriate. I was told that it was good for morale. A sticker does not make for good morale. I said it then and I say it now.

Tonight I want to highlight some of the good work that this behemoth of an organisation is doing and it is highlighted in the annual report. Defence's job is to defend Australia and its national interests. It does this with more than 100,000 permanent and reserve ADF members and civilians and a multi-billion dollar budget, at sites scattered throughout Australia and the world. Before this life I spent 10 years consulting Defence. I worked in DMO, I worked with the finance area, I worked    with the fairness and resolution branch, I worked in the environment branch, the ICT area, DSTO, the Australian Defence Force Cadets and with the secretary. I got to travel to cadet units in Nhulunbuy, Bamaga and Thursday Island. I got to visit munitions plants and distribution sites throughout Australia and I loved nearly every minute of it.

Tonight I will focus on a number of areas. First, is the Strategic Reform Program. This is Defence's highest priority after the conduct of operations and is designed to deliver savings of $20 billion. It does that through three key elements: improved accountability, improved defence planning and enhanced productivity. It remains Defence's highest priority after the conduct of operations. In the first year of the SRP the savings were of the order of $790 million. In the second year savings were in excess of $1 billion, so the target was achieved. In the year they were reporting on, the target was about $1.2 billion but there is nothing to suggest that the target will not be achieved in this current round. The targets then start to climb and it becomes very difficult, according to what Defence advised during the hearings.

The SRP is divided into seven streams: ICT, smart maintenance, logistics, non-equipment procurement, reserves, workforce and shared services and other cost reduction. The only recommendation we made arising from this annual report was that we had to work our way through the whole annual report to get a sense of what the SRP was achieving and what it was doing. So we advised Defence personnel during the hearings that they should separate it out into another chapter, which they took on board.

ASPI has made the comment that Defence budget papers refer to the SRP in a number of places but very little useful detail was provided. I think that is because it is buried throughout the document. It does deserve closer examination so I welcome the fact that Defence has also taken on board this recommendation to create a separate chapter on the SRP.

In the brief time I have available I want to say that the annual report also highlights what Defence is doing in terms of the Indigenous participation, in terms of multiculturalism in trying to broaden the diversity of Defence's personnel base and in what it is doing in terms of disability. Most importantly, it covers off the area of women. As we know there have been a number of reviews of women in the ADF. Most recently there was the review by the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Liz Broderick. Defence has been working on women's action plans for a number of years. It has got to a point where they now need to reboot it, in a way, and recast it. That is what they have made a commitment to do.

Finally, having worked on the reconciliation action plan in Defence, I was delighted to see that there appears to be a commitment to engage in welcome to country and acknowledgement of country by Defence personnel whenever they are having a ceremony at bases or sites throughout the ADF.

I enjoyed the hearings into this Defence annual report. I commend it as an interesting read to those who are interested in defence.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for statements on this report has expired. Does the member for Tangney wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?

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

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39(d), the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.