Australia gets a new Defence Minister after last Monday's PM coup.
Some of the alleged Defence intelligencia (which in this country doesn't mean much, especially if they are on the government payroll), think that it is bad to change out the Defence Minister for the sake of stability.
So let us look at the Defence Minister we should have kept.
He was part of the stitch-up to get us involved in bombing in Syria. Hint, bombing of this kind of nature with no real ground troops isn't going to do much because it is a stateless enemy. Did Australia expect someone to sign a surrender agreement? Any time you see a workable building bombed you are seeing something that civilians can't use and will cause additional suffering. Destroying buildings hasn't worked so well for the Syrian government. By the way, Assad's record before the great-unpleasantness looks pretty good now doesn't it? So, I am curious, did the out-going DM just rubber stamp all this? What kind of advice did he provide to the National Security Committee?
The same questions should be asked about our other current Middle East options. For the record, Australia has just enough military to provide value added response, to its' own neighbourhood.
The out-going PM was just, go-along-to-get-along with Option-J. This was the captain's pick of getting the Japanese submarines to replace the Collins-class, with no credible risk assessment. Where Germany and France played stalking horse in a rigged game.
The out-going DM has done nothing to address: the obsolete Air Warfare Destroyer, replacement frigates, the disaster that is the F-35 program, the MRH-90, Tiger, waste-of-space M-1 tanks, 170-plus flag-ranks for a tiny military. Basically, all this stuff and more.
Why would we want to keep such a person on the job?
This also goes to the topic of what kind of advice do defence ministers get from the uniformed services? Based on the track record over the years: not very good.
What quality of advice will the new Defence Minister receive? If history is an indication: poor.
The new PM has stated that he is bringing in a 21st century cabinet and a government that will be agile.
Until the entrenched defence bureaucracy swamp is drained, this will not be possible.
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