There is some more amusement with the bloated and faulty Air Warfare Destroyer program. A ship that is neither "Air Warfare" or useful.
Australia needs replacement (affordable and good-enough tech) frigates. It also needs patrol boats to take on the boat-people disaster created by Rudd, and messed up more by Gillard. Interesting how the Howard boat-people policy worked.
The faulty thinking RAN wants big amphibious flat-tops and and large destroyers to "protect" them. Without a useful air umbrella over them, the only thing to mark their history will be a war memorial commemorating the loss of scores of sailors and diggers. This cuts to the core of how incredibly irresponsible Defence Bureaucrat Groupthink really is. The end result is billions of dollars in waste, lost lives, lost battles and lost wars.
Fortunately, we know that the $36 billion + home-grown sub program will be a great success and a great war hammer.
As an officer on General Moltke's staff said of Bismark in 1870, "The civil servant in the cuirassier jacket becomes more impudent every day".
8 comments:
Where is the Senior Mangement of DMO. Have they ever heard of "Risk Assessment" which is usually carried BEFORE projects are started.
7,700 employees(and climbing) and a budget of 1.2 billion to end up with a situation like this.
Gumley and his ilk have a lot to answer for when you have a project ending in a farce, again.
In addition it is also encumbent on Defence and DMO to provde long term continuity to such organisations for obvious reasons, which obviously have escaped those in charge.
Atticus, you are absolutely right. There is a long list of DMO projects where proper risk management was lacking, eg: MRH90, Wedgetail, Tiger ARH, MU90 torpedo etc. Hopefully, these will eventually become fully operational but only after much delay, additional expense and the opening up of capability gaps.
Conversely it is interesting to note that those projects that have been delivered on time and on budget have been those over which the DMO have had least control, eg: Super Hornet, Abrams tank and C-17 Globemaster III.
The main objective of defence procurement should be genuine capability. Domestic industrial participation and technological development, while important, have to come second to the primary goal.
While Australia sometimes needs to be at the cutting edge of defence technology (eg Jindalee), most of the time we can can afford to hang back for a couple of years and wait for systems to be proven BEFORE we buy them or manufacture or assemble them here under license.
The most effective way to deal with boat people is still "coast guard" type of small patrol boat.
it is essentially high frequency, near shore activities. You can't send a destroyer chasing fishing ship full of people. It's too expensive.
And ultimately, refugee problem requires diplomatic issues and work with international community. No amount of boat chasing can solve refugee problem if there is big war somewhere.
Who mentioned boat people?
I did.
The only thing that needs to be done with the boat people is to not process them for any reason. It is a sovereignty issue. Which also means rejecting the U.N. treaty that deals with this.
Yes I agree. About two odd years ago Bill Keelty the Commisioner for the Federal Police advised that after their enquiries, the majority of boat people were economic refugees , and with no proof of identity etc. ie wealthy.
He was quickly told to mind his manners by his political masters.
By all means help as many as is feasible from genuine areas.
In addition have those who feel sorry for the economic refugees calculate the cost of giving these people priority housing etc. Many pensioners can not obtain public housing beause their priority is now gone.
Most of the boat people are NOT refugees...they are ILLEGAL ECONOMIC MIGRANTS who deliberately destroy all documentation, apart from, of course, what they will need AFTER they are granted refugee status.
They play the idiotic Government and more to the point, the media, like a fine tuned instrument.
Early this week, the head of the Medical Admin at one of Brisbane's major Hospitals(Princess Alexander) question why these"refugees" were given priority in all things medical leaving others on even longer waiting lists. Go figure
Post a Comment