Latest news with #HMASCanberra
RNZ News
16-07-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
'Building deterrence': PNG to host part of Australia's largest military exercise
(l-r) HMAS Canberra and USS Rafael Peralta conduct maritime manoeuvres off the coast of Queensland, during Exercise Talisman Sabre 2021. Photo: Talisman Sabre / LSIS Ernesto Sanchez For the first time, Papua New Guinea will host a training activity as part of Australia's largest military exercise, which one Pacific defence expert says is about "building strategic deterrence" in the region. Exercise Talisman Sabre , which began its eleventh iteration on 13 July, has over 30,000 personnel from 19 countries taking part, including Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga. The war-fighting exercise involves live-fire drills, air combat and maritime operations, including amphibious landings. Massey University's associate professor in defence and security studies Anna Powles told Pacific Waves that the exercise is taking place during a period of "really unprecedented geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific". "There is a very strong sense amongst a number of those countries participating, particularly Australia and the United States and others, that the Indo-Pacific may well become the location for conflict in the near future," she said. "These types of exercises, including those smaller Pacific militaries in the exercise, is all about building strategic deterrence across the region." On Saturday, the Financial Times reported that US defence official Elbridge Colby asked for clarification from Australia and Japan about what role they would play if the US and China went to war over Taiwan. Australia's Acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy told the ABC that he would not "engage in hypotheticals" or "disclose confidential discussions". Powles said Exercise Talisman Sabre was also significant for the Pacific because of Papua New Guinea hosting part of the event. She said it is becoming increasingly common to include the defence forces of Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Fiji in such bilateral combined training activities, noting they also participate in New Zealand's Exercise Southern Katipo. "What we are seeing increasingly now is a growing sense of wanting to include, like-minded defence partners in these exercises, such as exercise Talisman Sabre, because it is part of growing capabilities and interoperability with Pacific countries." She said relationships between the Pacific Island defence forces and those of Australia and New Zealand have been longstanding.
Sky News AU
02-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
The Australian Navy's two largest ships 'systematically failing': Report reveals 'dysfunction' in country's Naval fleet
The Navy is systematically failing to manage and maintain the two largest ships in its fleet – the 27,000 tonne LHD amphibious ships HMAS Canberra and HMAS Melbourne. The scale of the troubles is laid out in a 108-page national audit office report, with almost every page revealing deeper levels of problems and dysfunction. The problems aren't restricted to this part of the Navy's fleet. They have sobering implications for the whole Defence institution and for its capacity to manage AUKUS. These amphibious ships' problems have been growing and compounding since 2014, when Defence accepted the two ships from the builder, BAE Systems. Over the last ten years, Defence has shifted contractual responsibility between various companies and also moved responsibilities and authorities around inside its own bureaucracy. The results of all this shuffling and turbulence have been overwhelmingly poor. Total power failures on the big ships have happened while they were deployed on urgent disaster relief tasks twice – in Tonga in 2022 and Vanuatu in 2023. The poor material state of the ships has meant Navy chiefs were advised that there was between a 97 and 99 per cent chance of a system failure in a number of 'mission critical systems' during deployment of the ships. Maintenance has been systematically deferred because of funding pressures, skills shortages, tasks left incomplete and the need to send the ships off somewhere. The backlogs are creating a bow wave of work and expense over the remaining years of the ship's naval service. More broadly, the Navy's sustainment of its entire surface fleet is experiencing a cash crunch with budget pressures across Defence growing as the AUKUS and Hunter frigate demands for cash accelerate. The Navy estimated its urgent maintenance funding shortfall at $500 million over FY 2024-25 and FY 2025-26 and received a boost of $300 million, leaving it $200 million short over two years. The funding crunch no doubt continues beyond this time despite government protestations it's funding the capabilities we need. Flaws in the ships from the time they were constructed by BAE Systems have persisted, with remedial work incomplete when BAE was released by Defence from further contractual liabilities from the acquisition phase years after the ships were accepted into service. BAE promised in-kind contributions instead. Defence's oversight and management of the $180 million annual budget for the ships has been deeply flawed for over a decade and shows no signs of improvement. That's got to be disturbing for taxpayers, because it looks like we'll be putting $1.9 billion into the sustainment of these two ships over the period to 2033-34 according to Defence plans, and that's likely to not be enough. The processes Defence do have to manage the ships and the major contractors doing most of the work are complex, overlapping but partial. They are also disjointed and have not worked. Risks at the strategic level are managed in isolation of risks at the operational and technical levels. No surprise, as there is no clear line of sight between the risks in Defence's high sustainment framework for the ships and those being managed day to day. This is not all able to be laid at the feet of the Chief of Navy, because the byzantine organisational structures and overlapping roles of Defence's now enormous senior leadership structure – military and public servant – mean no one is in control. I think the Chief of Navy should be responsible and accountable for the state of the Navy fleet and they should have sufficient authority to give effect to those responsibilities. That can only happen with a radical simplification of the current Defence structure starting with stripping back its top heavy senior leadership to something coherent with responsibilities aligned to outcomes in the real world. And Defence has failed to provide mandatory periodic reporting on the material state of key systems our military uses, including the amphibious ships, to its Ministers for two years. According to Defence, this was because they were busy developing the Defence Strategic Review and they informed the Minister 'in conversations'. I have read many ANAO reports but this one is so tightly packed with descriptions of failures and shortfalls affecting the safety and effectiveness of our Navy's biggest ships that it is exceptional in a long line of insightful reports. Only the ANAO's 2023 report on the Hunter frigate scandal comes close in my memory. The audit's most damning section is a short one. It's 'Appendix 2: Improvements observed by the ANAO' (grammatically correct as it did find two): 'During the course of the audit the ANAO observed Defence update Navy's Materiel Sustainment Agreement (MSA) with the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group and establish an interim MSA with the Naval Shipbuilding and Sustainment Group". That's it, set against 100 pages of disarray. Without the ANAO, we would hear nothing about these long standing, persistent deep institutional problems and the poor use of billions of dollars of scarce taxpayer money by Defence and the companies it has contracted to sustain the ships under its authority and oversight. Instead, we would have the responsible ministers expressing their full confidence in the professionalism and competence of senior Defence leadership and claiming they can provide no information because of operational or security concerns. A sprinkling of claims of commercial in confidence matters would close the information tap completely. So the ANAO report shows what the public can know when a government organisation understands its obligation to inform the public about its work and is not focused mainly on avoiding embarrassment that revealing shortcomings would bring. Instead, disclosure means they can be addressed and prevented. It sets a standard for disclosure that Defence can – and should be required by its Ministers - to meet. Beyond the reams of detail set out by the ANAO about how Defence, the Navy and the companies they contract are failing in ways that affect mission success when Navy ships are deployed by the Government, there is a wider and deeper issue. This same class of Navy ships has experienced the same systemic mismanagement and failure of technical and leadership capacity before, just over 14 years ago. Back then, the then Chief of Navy sent a brief note to the Minister for Defence in the lead up to Christmas to let him know that none of the Navy's three amphibious ships were in a state for them to be available for disaster relief operations over the peak cyclone season for Australia and the South Pacific. This brief note did not leave the then Minister expressing full confidence in Defence and its leadership. It triggered a forensic external inquiry into the state of the Navy's technical workforce, contractual arrangements for ship repair and maintenance and basic approach to ensuring its fleet was seaworthy – the Rizzo review that reported in 2011. It also led to that Minister directing Defence to urgently buy a new large amphibious ship, HMAS Choules, so that the Navy could do actually what the government had thought it already could. So, it's beyond disturbing that the same issues are back again, joined by new ones – and they have been present for the entire ten-year service life of our two biggest Navy ships to date. The obvious question is how the poor management of government resources – money, people, material and time – that is laid out in such stark detail at such length could be isolated to just the Navy's big amphibious ships. The same people and processes are used across the whole of Defence and each of the three Services – with some exceptions like the Air Force's superior approach to airworthiness. And it is these people, using these flawed process, without a clear line of sight to real world outcomes who are responsible for equipping the young men and women on the frontline of our nations Defence with what they need to ensure our security. Michael Shoebridge is a contributor and the founder and director of Strategic Analysis Australia
Time of India
01-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Australia's navy not ready for war? PM Anthony Albanese dismisses audit findings
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has strongly denied claims that Defence Minister Richard Marles was not properly briefed about the readiness of the country's warships.A government audit released last week revealed that the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) had failed to maintain two of its most important vessels, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide. It also stated that Marles did not receive official 'preparedness reports' from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in 2023 and 2024, during the time the Defence Strategic Review was being the audit said Marles was briefed through 'other means,' including informal Tuesday(July 1), Prime Minister Albanese rejected the suggestion that his deputy had been left in the dark.'Well, that's just absurd, that's just absurd,' Albanese told Channel Nine's Today show.'That's just ridiculous, frankly. I haven't seen that report, but we sit in the National Security Committee with the Chief of the Defence Force. We meet regularly.'He added that the government's recent defence funding decisions, including a $57 billion expansion and an additional $1 billion brought forward in the March 2025 budget, were based on direct consultations with Defence officials. Preparedness reports are used to assess how quickly military assets can be deployed during emergencies like war or natural disasters. The lack of formal reporting raised concerns amid growing tensions in the Indo-Pacific is also under increasing pressure from the United States to raise its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Prime Minister Albanese has resisted those calls, saying Canberra will determine defence needs independently.'Our national security is a matter for Australia, not Washington,' he said earlier this week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said US allies in the Asia-Pacific should follow Europe's lead in boosting military budgets. NATO members, except Spain, have recently agreed to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent of New Zealand, and South Korea have also committed to increasing their defence budgets in response to regional audit report and the government's response come as Australia works to reassure allies about its military readiness and reliability, especially under the AUKUS defence pact with the US and UK.
The Advertiser
01-07-2025
- General
- The Advertiser
It's not how much you spend on defence but how well you spend it
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It was another ignominious end. Dismantled, cannibalised for spare parts, their bodies were buried in an undisclosed location. They were never very good and were destined to be replaced, but a fatal crash in 2023 saw their demise brought forward. But Defence's jettisoning of the MRH90 Taipan helicopter wasn't the first time it had spent billions on a dud. In October 2008, their rotor blades removed, another terrible decision was shrink-wrapped, loaded onto semi trailers and trucked out of the HMAS Albatross naval air station near Nowra. If the MRH90 decision was a blunder, the decision in 1997 to buy 11 Super Seasprites for our fleet of ANZAC class frigates, was a catastrophe. At least the MRH90 flew. Not a single Super Seasprite became operational. You might as well have piled up in small denominations the $1 billion they cost and set fire to it. Of course, it's not just kit that's meant to fly which has the sour taste of expensive lemon about it. We've had the Collins class subs. Noisy, unreliable and, as discovered last year, corroding in the salt water meant to be their natural habitat. Having already cost about $20 billion, billions more is being spent to keep them going until the AUKUS subs arrive - if they do. The largest ships our navy operates - the two Landing Helicopter Decks, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide - arrived in the middle of the 2010s riddled with defects. HMAS Canberra chalked up 6000 of them. And the cost to keep them is nudging $200 million a year. I could go on. And on. And on some more. When it comes to spending money on defence, our track record on spending it wisely is far from flash. We have a history of spending a lot of buck for little bang. That's why alarm bells ring when there's a clamour for increased defence spending without any detail about how and where that money should be spent. Much of it is political noise, generated by NATO snapping to attention with a sharp "Sir, yessir!" - or a simpering "Yes, Daddy" if you were nauseated by its sycophancy when Trump visited - when it agreed to a US demand to lift its defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government has batted away the calls from the usual suspects - Pete Hegseth, Karoline Leavitt and their two local parrots, Angus Taylor and Bridget McKenzie, neither of whom have spelled out of what spending they'd cut or taxes they'd raise to meet the extra spending. The government says Australia will decide on the capabilities it needs and spend accordingly. It's read the room and knows we don't like being told what to do - especially by the Trump administration. And we won't take well to extortion via tariffs either. It also knows Australia doesn't need to strike the same war footing as Europe. We don't have a war on our doorstep. There's no Russia imperilling our borders. That's not to say we shouldn't be clear-eyed about the challenges we face. China's military build-up cannot be ignored but also should not be overstated. It's unlikely to be coveting our distant shores because it's far cheaper to buy the resources we have than attempt to seize them. But can we ever know for certain? Probably not. Defence spending is important. But it's less a question how much we spend than how well. HAVE YOUR SAY: Should Australia follow NATO's lead and increase defence spending? Would you be happy to pay more tax to pay for more military hardware? Is China a bigger threat than the US to Australia? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - NSW Premier Chris Minns has refused to condemn the "brutal" actions of police who broke up a pro-Palestine protest that left a one-time federal Greens candidate with a serious eye injury. - A senior public servant who gave a relative's career a leg up while hiding their connection has been found to be corrupt by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. - One of Australia's biggest health insurers admits it incorrectly dealt with loads of claims and left customers thousands of dollars out of pocket. Bupa says it is "deeply sorry" for the conduct Australia's consumer watchdog found to be misleading and deceptive across more than five years. THEY SAID IT: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." - Martin Luther King jnr. YOU SAID IT: Truth might be the first casualty in war, but language falls soon after in a cacophony of buzzwords and euphemisms. "There also seems to be a great shortage of 'guardrails' in Australia in recent times," writes Ian. "No doubt, we could use some on our off-ramps. The expressions 'ethnic cleansing' and 'collateral damage' may be euphemistic, but they drip with irony and let the imagination run amok. So, they are all the more powerful expressions for it." David writes: "A concomitant aspect of the ongoing Coca-Cola-nisation of Australia is the gradual change of pronunciation of certain syllables/words/emphases adopted by news presenters/commentators: 'progress', where 'prog' rhymes with 'dog', and 'process' where 'proc' rhymes with 'boss'. The 'cig' in cigarette is emphasised instead of the 'ette'. Is it an inferiority problem, insecurity, ignorance? Whatever, it is painful." "The 'buzz phrase' that annoys me most? 'Reaching out' when all I did was make a phone call," writes Judith. "Nothing dramatic. I wasn't in dire straights. I didn't need rescuing. It was just an ordinary, garden variety phone call, probably to make an ordinary, garden variety enquiry about hours of trading. Or something equally mundane." Maggie writes: "Ethnic cleansing' revolts me. There's nothing clean about it; it's genocide. 'Decimate' - not nearly as bad as some people seem to think. 'That's incredible' - I hear, 'I don't believe you'. A diplomatic off-ramp? There's danger of simplistic thinking that might cloud a complex reality." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It was another ignominious end. Dismantled, cannibalised for spare parts, their bodies were buried in an undisclosed location. They were never very good and were destined to be replaced, but a fatal crash in 2023 saw their demise brought forward. But Defence's jettisoning of the MRH90 Taipan helicopter wasn't the first time it had spent billions on a dud. In October 2008, their rotor blades removed, another terrible decision was shrink-wrapped, loaded onto semi trailers and trucked out of the HMAS Albatross naval air station near Nowra. If the MRH90 decision was a blunder, the decision in 1997 to buy 11 Super Seasprites for our fleet of ANZAC class frigates, was a catastrophe. At least the MRH90 flew. Not a single Super Seasprite became operational. You might as well have piled up in small denominations the $1 billion they cost and set fire to it. Of course, it's not just kit that's meant to fly which has the sour taste of expensive lemon about it. We've had the Collins class subs. Noisy, unreliable and, as discovered last year, corroding in the salt water meant to be their natural habitat. Having already cost about $20 billion, billions more is being spent to keep them going until the AUKUS subs arrive - if they do. The largest ships our navy operates - the two Landing Helicopter Decks, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide - arrived in the middle of the 2010s riddled with defects. HMAS Canberra chalked up 6000 of them. And the cost to keep them is nudging $200 million a year. I could go on. And on. And on some more. When it comes to spending money on defence, our track record on spending it wisely is far from flash. We have a history of spending a lot of buck for little bang. That's why alarm bells ring when there's a clamour for increased defence spending without any detail about how and where that money should be spent. Much of it is political noise, generated by NATO snapping to attention with a sharp "Sir, yessir!" - or a simpering "Yes, Daddy" if you were nauseated by its sycophancy when Trump visited - when it agreed to a US demand to lift its defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government has batted away the calls from the usual suspects - Pete Hegseth, Karoline Leavitt and their two local parrots, Angus Taylor and Bridget McKenzie, neither of whom have spelled out of what spending they'd cut or taxes they'd raise to meet the extra spending. The government says Australia will decide on the capabilities it needs and spend accordingly. It's read the room and knows we don't like being told what to do - especially by the Trump administration. And we won't take well to extortion via tariffs either. It also knows Australia doesn't need to strike the same war footing as Europe. We don't have a war on our doorstep. There's no Russia imperilling our borders. That's not to say we shouldn't be clear-eyed about the challenges we face. China's military build-up cannot be ignored but also should not be overstated. It's unlikely to be coveting our distant shores because it's far cheaper to buy the resources we have than attempt to seize them. But can we ever know for certain? Probably not. Defence spending is important. But it's less a question how much we spend than how well. HAVE YOUR SAY: Should Australia follow NATO's lead and increase defence spending? Would you be happy to pay more tax to pay for more military hardware? Is China a bigger threat than the US to Australia? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - NSW Premier Chris Minns has refused to condemn the "brutal" actions of police who broke up a pro-Palestine protest that left a one-time federal Greens candidate with a serious eye injury. - A senior public servant who gave a relative's career a leg up while hiding their connection has been found to be corrupt by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. - One of Australia's biggest health insurers admits it incorrectly dealt with loads of claims and left customers thousands of dollars out of pocket. Bupa says it is "deeply sorry" for the conduct Australia's consumer watchdog found to be misleading and deceptive across more than five years. THEY SAID IT: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." - Martin Luther King jnr. YOU SAID IT: Truth might be the first casualty in war, but language falls soon after in a cacophony of buzzwords and euphemisms. "There also seems to be a great shortage of 'guardrails' in Australia in recent times," writes Ian. "No doubt, we could use some on our off-ramps. The expressions 'ethnic cleansing' and 'collateral damage' may be euphemistic, but they drip with irony and let the imagination run amok. So, they are all the more powerful expressions for it." David writes: "A concomitant aspect of the ongoing Coca-Cola-nisation of Australia is the gradual change of pronunciation of certain syllables/words/emphases adopted by news presenters/commentators: 'progress', where 'prog' rhymes with 'dog', and 'process' where 'proc' rhymes with 'boss'. The 'cig' in cigarette is emphasised instead of the 'ette'. Is it an inferiority problem, insecurity, ignorance? Whatever, it is painful." "The 'buzz phrase' that annoys me most? 'Reaching out' when all I did was make a phone call," writes Judith. "Nothing dramatic. I wasn't in dire straights. I didn't need rescuing. It was just an ordinary, garden variety phone call, probably to make an ordinary, garden variety enquiry about hours of trading. Or something equally mundane." Maggie writes: "Ethnic cleansing' revolts me. There's nothing clean about it; it's genocide. 'Decimate' - not nearly as bad as some people seem to think. 'That's incredible' - I hear, 'I don't believe you'. A diplomatic off-ramp? There's danger of simplistic thinking that might cloud a complex reality." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It was another ignominious end. Dismantled, cannibalised for spare parts, their bodies were buried in an undisclosed location. They were never very good and were destined to be replaced, but a fatal crash in 2023 saw their demise brought forward. But Defence's jettisoning of the MRH90 Taipan helicopter wasn't the first time it had spent billions on a dud. In October 2008, their rotor blades removed, another terrible decision was shrink-wrapped, loaded onto semi trailers and trucked out of the HMAS Albatross naval air station near Nowra. If the MRH90 decision was a blunder, the decision in 1997 to buy 11 Super Seasprites for our fleet of ANZAC class frigates, was a catastrophe. At least the MRH90 flew. Not a single Super Seasprite became operational. You might as well have piled up in small denominations the $1 billion they cost and set fire to it. Of course, it's not just kit that's meant to fly which has the sour taste of expensive lemon about it. We've had the Collins class subs. Noisy, unreliable and, as discovered last year, corroding in the salt water meant to be their natural habitat. Having already cost about $20 billion, billions more is being spent to keep them going until the AUKUS subs arrive - if they do. The largest ships our navy operates - the two Landing Helicopter Decks, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide - arrived in the middle of the 2010s riddled with defects. HMAS Canberra chalked up 6000 of them. And the cost to keep them is nudging $200 million a year. I could go on. And on. And on some more. When it comes to spending money on defence, our track record on spending it wisely is far from flash. We have a history of spending a lot of buck for little bang. That's why alarm bells ring when there's a clamour for increased defence spending without any detail about how and where that money should be spent. Much of it is political noise, generated by NATO snapping to attention with a sharp "Sir, yessir!" - or a simpering "Yes, Daddy" if you were nauseated by its sycophancy when Trump visited - when it agreed to a US demand to lift its defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government has batted away the calls from the usual suspects - Pete Hegseth, Karoline Leavitt and their two local parrots, Angus Taylor and Bridget McKenzie, neither of whom have spelled out of what spending they'd cut or taxes they'd raise to meet the extra spending. The government says Australia will decide on the capabilities it needs and spend accordingly. It's read the room and knows we don't like being told what to do - especially by the Trump administration. And we won't take well to extortion via tariffs either. It also knows Australia doesn't need to strike the same war footing as Europe. We don't have a war on our doorstep. There's no Russia imperilling our borders. That's not to say we shouldn't be clear-eyed about the challenges we face. China's military build-up cannot be ignored but also should not be overstated. It's unlikely to be coveting our distant shores because it's far cheaper to buy the resources we have than attempt to seize them. But can we ever know for certain? Probably not. Defence spending is important. But it's less a question how much we spend than how well. HAVE YOUR SAY: Should Australia follow NATO's lead and increase defence spending? Would you be happy to pay more tax to pay for more military hardware? Is China a bigger threat than the US to Australia? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - NSW Premier Chris Minns has refused to condemn the "brutal" actions of police who broke up a pro-Palestine protest that left a one-time federal Greens candidate with a serious eye injury. - A senior public servant who gave a relative's career a leg up while hiding their connection has been found to be corrupt by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. - One of Australia's biggest health insurers admits it incorrectly dealt with loads of claims and left customers thousands of dollars out of pocket. Bupa says it is "deeply sorry" for the conduct Australia's consumer watchdog found to be misleading and deceptive across more than five years. THEY SAID IT: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." - Martin Luther King jnr. YOU SAID IT: Truth might be the first casualty in war, but language falls soon after in a cacophony of buzzwords and euphemisms. "There also seems to be a great shortage of 'guardrails' in Australia in recent times," writes Ian. "No doubt, we could use some on our off-ramps. The expressions 'ethnic cleansing' and 'collateral damage' may be euphemistic, but they drip with irony and let the imagination run amok. So, they are all the more powerful expressions for it." David writes: "A concomitant aspect of the ongoing Coca-Cola-nisation of Australia is the gradual change of pronunciation of certain syllables/words/emphases adopted by news presenters/commentators: 'progress', where 'prog' rhymes with 'dog', and 'process' where 'proc' rhymes with 'boss'. The 'cig' in cigarette is emphasised instead of the 'ette'. Is it an inferiority problem, insecurity, ignorance? Whatever, it is painful." "The 'buzz phrase' that annoys me most? 'Reaching out' when all I did was make a phone call," writes Judith. "Nothing dramatic. I wasn't in dire straights. I didn't need rescuing. It was just an ordinary, garden variety phone call, probably to make an ordinary, garden variety enquiry about hours of trading. Or something equally mundane." Maggie writes: "Ethnic cleansing' revolts me. There's nothing clean about it; it's genocide. 'Decimate' - not nearly as bad as some people seem to think. 'That's incredible' - I hear, 'I don't believe you'. A diplomatic off-ramp? There's danger of simplistic thinking that might cloud a complex reality." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to It was another ignominious end. Dismantled, cannibalised for spare parts, their bodies were buried in an undisclosed location. They were never very good and were destined to be replaced, but a fatal crash in 2023 saw their demise brought forward. But Defence's jettisoning of the MRH90 Taipan helicopter wasn't the first time it had spent billions on a dud. In October 2008, their rotor blades removed, another terrible decision was shrink-wrapped, loaded onto semi trailers and trucked out of the HMAS Albatross naval air station near Nowra. If the MRH90 decision was a blunder, the decision in 1997 to buy 11 Super Seasprites for our fleet of ANZAC class frigates, was a catastrophe. At least the MRH90 flew. Not a single Super Seasprite became operational. You might as well have piled up in small denominations the $1 billion they cost and set fire to it. Of course, it's not just kit that's meant to fly which has the sour taste of expensive lemon about it. We've had the Collins class subs. Noisy, unreliable and, as discovered last year, corroding in the salt water meant to be their natural habitat. Having already cost about $20 billion, billions more is being spent to keep them going until the AUKUS subs arrive - if they do. The largest ships our navy operates - the two Landing Helicopter Decks, HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide - arrived in the middle of the 2010s riddled with defects. HMAS Canberra chalked up 6000 of them. And the cost to keep them is nudging $200 million a year. I could go on. And on. And on some more. When it comes to spending money on defence, our track record on spending it wisely is far from flash. We have a history of spending a lot of buck for little bang. That's why alarm bells ring when there's a clamour for increased defence spending without any detail about how and where that money should be spent. Much of it is political noise, generated by NATO snapping to attention with a sharp "Sir, yessir!" - or a simpering "Yes, Daddy" if you were nauseated by its sycophancy when Trump visited - when it agreed to a US demand to lift its defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government has batted away the calls from the usual suspects - Pete Hegseth, Karoline Leavitt and their two local parrots, Angus Taylor and Bridget McKenzie, neither of whom have spelled out of what spending they'd cut or taxes they'd raise to meet the extra spending. The government says Australia will decide on the capabilities it needs and spend accordingly. It's read the room and knows we don't like being told what to do - especially by the Trump administration. And we won't take well to extortion via tariffs either. It also knows Australia doesn't need to strike the same war footing as Europe. We don't have a war on our doorstep. There's no Russia imperilling our borders. That's not to say we shouldn't be clear-eyed about the challenges we face. China's military build-up cannot be ignored but also should not be overstated. It's unlikely to be coveting our distant shores because it's far cheaper to buy the resources we have than attempt to seize them. But can we ever know for certain? Probably not. Defence spending is important. But it's less a question how much we spend than how well. HAVE YOUR SAY: Should Australia follow NATO's lead and increase defence spending? Would you be happy to pay more tax to pay for more military hardware? Is China a bigger threat than the US to Australia? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - NSW Premier Chris Minns has refused to condemn the "brutal" actions of police who broke up a pro-Palestine protest that left a one-time federal Greens candidate with a serious eye injury. - A senior public servant who gave a relative's career a leg up while hiding their connection has been found to be corrupt by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. - One of Australia's biggest health insurers admits it incorrectly dealt with loads of claims and left customers thousands of dollars out of pocket. Bupa says it is "deeply sorry" for the conduct Australia's consumer watchdog found to be misleading and deceptive across more than five years. THEY SAID IT: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom." - Martin Luther King jnr. YOU SAID IT: Truth might be the first casualty in war, but language falls soon after in a cacophony of buzzwords and euphemisms. "There also seems to be a great shortage of 'guardrails' in Australia in recent times," writes Ian. "No doubt, we could use some on our off-ramps. The expressions 'ethnic cleansing' and 'collateral damage' may be euphemistic, but they drip with irony and let the imagination run amok. So, they are all the more powerful expressions for it." David writes: "A concomitant aspect of the ongoing Coca-Cola-nisation of Australia is the gradual change of pronunciation of certain syllables/words/emphases adopted by news presenters/commentators: 'progress', where 'prog' rhymes with 'dog', and 'process' where 'proc' rhymes with 'boss'. The 'cig' in cigarette is emphasised instead of the 'ette'. Is it an inferiority problem, insecurity, ignorance? Whatever, it is painful." "The 'buzz phrase' that annoys me most? 'Reaching out' when all I did was make a phone call," writes Judith. "Nothing dramatic. I wasn't in dire straights. I didn't need rescuing. It was just an ordinary, garden variety phone call, probably to make an ordinary, garden variety enquiry about hours of trading. Or something equally mundane." Maggie writes: "Ethnic cleansing' revolts me. There's nothing clean about it; it's genocide. 'Decimate' - not nearly as bad as some people seem to think. 'That's incredible' - I hear, 'I don't believe you'. A diplomatic off-ramp? There's danger of simplistic thinking that might cloud a complex reality."
Perth Now
01-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Albo hits back at ‘absurd' defence claim
Anthony Albanese has rejected a report detail revealing his deputy, Defence Minister Richard Marles, did not get warship readiness briefings for years. An audit published on Friday found the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) has failed to properly maintain Australia's biggest battleships – the HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide. It also revealed Mr Marles did not get 'preparedness reports' from Australian Defence Force (ADF) officials 'in 2023 and 2024 due to development of the 2023 Defence Strategic Review'. Instead, Mr Marles was briefed 'through 'other means', including during conversations'. The Prime Minister flatly rejected the finding when asked about it on Tuesday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (right) has rejected revelations his deputy and Defence Minister Richard Marles (left) did not get key readiness briefings for years. Credit: News Corp Australia, Martin Ollman / NewsWire 'Well, that's just absurd, that's just absurd,' Mr Albanese told Nine's Today. Pressed further, he said Mr Marles was 'of course' briefed. 'That's just ridiculous, frankly,' Mr Albanese said. 'I haven't seen that report, but we sit in the National Security Committee with the Chief of the Defence Force. 'We meet regularly. I certainly have met with heads of all of the armed forces regularly, and that is just completely incorrect.' He said the extra $57bn Labor had pumped into expanding capability 'has come directly after discussions and engagement, obviously with Defence'. 'And in the last budget in March, indeed, we brought forward a billion dollars of additional spending, bringing to over $10bn our additional commitments over the forward estimates as well,' Mr Albanese said. Preparedness reports detail what can be deployed in the event of a war or natural disaster – key information against a backdrop of looming conflict in the Indo-Pacific and increasingly common extreme weather events. Labor's handling of defence has come under a microscope since the US last month demanded Australia hike the ADF's budget to 3.5 per cent of GDP. Mr Albanese has resisted, saying Australia's national security was a matter for Canberra, not Washington. He has also said his government would first determine need and then allocate funds rather than set a flat GDP target. But the government's position has put Australia at odds with its allies across the world, with all NATO members bar Spain agreeing to lift defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP last week. Closer to home, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea have all recently committed to spending more amid warnings from the Trump administration the region faces graver threats than Europe. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took a thinly veiled shot at Australia last week, saying if European countries can agree to hike defence spending, then US allies in the Indo Pacific 'can do it as well'. 'I mean, look, if our allies in Europe and our NATO allies can do it, I think our allies and our friends in the Asia-Pacific region can do it as well,' she said, responding to an Australian journalist. 'But as for our specific relations and discussions, I will let the President speak on those.' Though whether the Trump administration would actually seek to mirror a NATO target for allies in the Indo Pacific remains unclear.
