David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to talk about a subject which is dear to my heart—that is, the defence of Australia. I was alarmed to see in the Age this morning an article quoting Professor Peter Leahy of the Australian National University, in which he was quoted as calling for cuts to our defence budget so that more can be spent on diplomacy and aid programs. Professor Leahy is a retired Lieutenant General and was Chief of the Australian Army from 2002 to 2008. His views must be treated with respect, but I must disagree with his reported comments. I do not think our national interest would be served at this time by cutting our defence budget.

We live in an increasingly dangerous part of the world. Professor Leahy correctly identified some of the threats to regional security, including climate change, mass migration and pandemics. But there are others—terrorism, maritime piracy, rogue states, failed states and the rivalry between emerging regional powers—and these threats can only be met by defence preparedness. It is a fact of life that Australia has had to spend more on defence, and that is not going to change. Our region is becoming the cockpit of rivalry between the US, China, India, Japan and others. We have territorial disputes in the oil-rich islands of the South China Sea. We have seen crises in our region in East Timor and the Solomon Islands that have required our intervention. We have piracy in the waters to our north and in the Indian Ocean. We have the operations of people smugglers on our maritime borders and we have ongoing military operations in Afghanistan.

These many and varied problems present a challenge in terms of defence procurement. Modern defence assets such as ships and aircraft have very long lead times. They must be ordered 10 or even 20 years before they actually become available. It is a very difficult thing to predict the defence environment which will exist at the time we take delivery of these assets. We saw this with the F111 fighter-bomber. The Menzies government ordered the F111 in 1963, during the time of President Sukarno’s anti-Western confrontation policy. By the time these planes became operational with the RAAF in 1973, some 10 years later, President Sukarno was dead and Indonesia was our friend and ally. The F111s are still flying 37 years later, and as far as I am aware they have never fired a shot in anger. But who in 1963 could have predicted Australia’s strategic environment in 2010? Clearly no-one could have. We did need to be prepared for various possible long-term contingencies, up to and including an attack on Australia or the threat of it. That is why the F111s were a sound investment, despite the criticism incurred at the time through delays and cost overruns.

The same considerations apply to the Lockheed Martin F35 Joint Strike Fighter. We ordered these aircraft in 2002, with an initial purchase of 14 and longer term options for up to 100. They are expected to be in service by 2018. If they are operational for as long as the F111s were, we could still be flying them in 2050, although their current predicted retirement date is between 2030 and 2040. Some critics have suggested we do not need a fighter aircraft of this level of sophistication, and indeed at something like $100 million each they are an expensive purchase. The F111s, as I recall, cost $5 million each. That reflects the radically increased cost of modern defence technology. But I repeat that we cannot know what our strategic environment will be in 10, 20 or 30 years—certainly not in any forensic way.

Maybe these aircraft will never be used. But we cannot plan on the basis of ‘maybe’. Who could have predicted in 1922 that in 1942 Singapore would fall to the Japanese and Australia would be facing the threat of invasion? Fortunately, in those days it did not take 20 years to develop and build a fighter aircraft. But today it does. We have to plan on the basis that there may be long-term threats to Australia’s security. I am strongly of the view that the F35 is the right aircraft for Australia’s future defence needs, whatever contingencies may emerge. As a stealth multirole fighter, it can perform close air support, tactical bombing and air defence missions. It is therefore sufficiently flexible to be adaptable to the wide variety of security threats that we may have to face over the next 30 years.

The F35 features some of the most advanced defence technology in the world, particularly in its radar and communications systems. It includes many of the features of the Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS. It generates signals over a wide range of frequencies in an unpredictable fashion to ensure a low probability of being detected—allowing it to see but not be seen. As early participants in the Joint Strike Fighter development project and as part funders of it, we will have privileged access to this technology. Only the UK, Canada and the Netherlands will have similar access. This is an important point. These will be the most modern fighters in existence. The fact that so few countries will have access to that technology greatly enhances the attractiveness of this purchase to Australia.

It is true that there have been recent setbacks to the F35 in the US, with the expected operational date for the aircraft being pushed back from 2013 to 2015. But that does not affect Australia, because we allowed for such delays in our planning. We expect to receive our first F35 for training and test flights in 2014 and our first squadron for operational use in 2018. In the meantime, we have bought 24 FA18 Super Hornets to tide us over in the period between the retirement of the F111s and the arrival of the F35s.

I commend the Rudd Labor government for its determination to see that Australia’s defence needs are provided for by remaining firmly committed to the purchase of the F35. I think those who argue against defence capabilities of this type are seriously misreading our defence environment. Support for this purchase and this program has been, and I hope will continue to be, bipartisan in nature. Of course, we need to pay attention to diplomacy, to aid programs, to intelligence and to nation building in our region. These continue to be very important priorities for our diplomats and government. But we must not shy away from the fact that the foundation of national defence is the ability, in the last resort, to deploy firepower—an unpalatable but eternal truth. It is the credibility of a nation’s deterrent force that makes the need actually to use that firepower less likely. The F35 will provide Australia with a powerful deterrent force for decades to come and will thus help to preserve the peace.