Richard Marles caught out again on defence spending

If you don’t know better, you’ll think that Defense Minister Richard Marles is above the portfolio, why we shouldn’t lift our defense expenses faster than we’ve already been, and dealing with some key problems about our defense dollars.

I’m talking from Australia “Australian Defense” Summit – busy Marles acknowledged by the usual suspects (some of whom chaired the defense supply in the last twenty years).

Therefore, projects that work over time are a marker for the failure of leadership, according to Marles. Let’s take him to his word.

The last of the auditor Big Projects Report – The annual assessment of the Australian National Audit Office about the largest defense projects – Total “slip” or delay in projects evaluated since December 2024 was 442 months or approximately 37 years.

What inherited Marles from the coalition? Big Projects Report published A few months before the 2022 elections, the total shift… 405 months. . average Slip was 23 months then. It was 25 months last year. In -year program shift It was 73 months then. It was 96 months last year.

Marles described the “failure of leadership as a project delay. On this basis, worse than the coalition – a lot.

Although the defense under Marles is trying to prevent us from knowing the project delay, we know all this. Defense told Anao not to publish performance information for 20 of the 21 projects evaluated – until the previous year and only four in the last year of the coalition.

Marles continued yesterday, ” [Defence] In accordance with the purpose, today I say that everything is on the table, including the bureaucratic reform of the Ministry of Defense, Australian Defense Forces and Defense Agencies ”.

This was the package that journalists rightly reported: Marles is forced to bureaucrats. The problem is that even the usual suspects in the debate on defense financing, because GDP, 3%, 3.5%, or even 5%of the defense expenditures who want to spend the defense, now the defense will be completely desperate in spending.

Let’s see what Marles said, not what he said. A year ago, General Auditor Amazing supervision Defense’s relationship with Thales for many years with an ammunition factory. Anao made this remarkable statement about how the Ministry of Defense hides information and how it misleaded the Minister Linda Reynolds and Melissa Price at that time.

On January 9, 2020, he advised the ministers to the defense and defense industry on the defense negotiations of the SDMMM contract. He did not give information about the key issues that arose in recommendations, tender and contract negotiations, for example: Defense’s assessing that the Thales is a ‘unprecedented’ lack of tender (see paragraph 3.83); The basis of Defense’s decision to continue negotiations (see paragraphs 3.84 to 3.89); Or the assessment of the negotiation schedule of Defense about the ‘very high -risk’ nature was decided by Thales (see paragraph 3.89). In November 2019, in November 2019, more complete draft recommendations were prepared by the defense in November 2019, but This version was not given to them. [emphasis added]

As ministers who are democratically elected responsible for the defense portfolio, Reynolds and Price deserve to be fully informed by their bureaucrats and were not misled by the deliberate negligence of key information. Reynolds last year He said he felt sick When you read the Anao report.

What was Marles’ response to this shocking defense claim? Did he demand the dismissal of the authorities participating in the misleading ministers? Did he ever ask if he was misleading? He wanted defense, did he ask the ministers to explain other events when they misleaded?

He did nothing: “Thales is a very important company in terms of their contribution to the Australian Defense Forces.” Indeed, Marles did nothing in response to the scary Anao reports that emerged at the watch. “Is everything at the table?” It’s likely.

However, some of the people who excited some people were: “The current geography of Australia is more relevant since the end of World War II with the Great Power Competition, probably at any point of our history.”

This means that HAWKS will be very important for any “competition ında between the US and China, including training, bombing planes, ships and supply storage of Australia’s deep integration into the US army of Australia. This integration, which was initiated by Julia Gillard and expanded by the coalition during the ruling period, expanded rapidly under Marles, including the placement of US operators on Australia’s foreign policy and intelligence device.

Today, Paul Keating targeted Marles in a wide statement that the government has abandoned Australian sovereignty – correctly – in a “poor quality önemli conference. It was, Keating said,

A dark moment in the history of Australia. A moment when the Australian Labor Party government’s government is allegedly released as a platform for the US as a platform for the United States, intellectually left Australia to the United States and responds to a threat of China for military participation against the Chinese state of Australia. And to direct the continent to the United States, one month after an election of the government – but refused to explain his strategic intentions and policies. He refused to allow the Australian community to be a party to the strategic thought and intention of the people.

Keating is entirely true that the government refuses to deal with any strategic issue during the election campaign and actively avoids the opportunities to do so. Defense continues to be the big black hole in Australia, both competence and democratic accountability.