General Alert

General Alert

By Kaye Lee on April 10, 2014 • 

Despite
diplomatic convention dictating otherwise, in a press conference in
Seoul, Tony Abbott continued his bad habit of publicly criticising the
previous government for several issues, including their decision to
cancel a gun order from South Korea. He has apparently promised, in his
obscene haste to sign a free trade agreement, that we will buy armaments
from them in the future.


Now I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to spend our money on
education, health, action on climate change, the NBN, the NDIS, job
creation – those sorts of things – than on buying weapons to help
Korea’s economy.


Total world military expenditure in 2012 was over $1.75 trillion.
This is equivalent to 2.5 per cent of global GDP. The US spent about
$700 billion alone.


China announced a defence budget for 2014 of $132 billion, a generous
increase of 12.2% on the year before. That was the official figure,
though the real one may be 40% higher still. Japan, Vietnam and South
Korea are raising their military expenditure in response to the Chinese
military build-up.


Russia’s defence spending will increase by 18% in 2014, and another
33% over the next two years. This is projected to be about 3.4 percent
of Russia’s GDP but over 20 percent of government spending.


Defence experts estimate the current Australian defence spending at
about $26.5bn this year – or 1.6 per cent of GDP. The Coalition wants to
double this to $50 billion a year within a decade and have
commissioned, you guessed it, yet another defence white paper.


Minister for Defence, Senator Johnston, originally wanted academic
and noted commentator Alan Dupont to write the report, and Mr Dupont had
begun work in the Defence Department and had assembled a team to work
on the document. ‘Tony Abbott’s office’ (have you noticed how often that
phrase comes up) overruled him deciding that the white paper would be
written within the Defence Department, as was the case with the Howard
government’s 2001 defence white paper. What Defence Department in the
history of the world has ever said we need less money?


While we are being told that Labor ambushed the Coalition with
unaffordable spending commitments on education and the NDIS in the years
beyond the forward estimates we hear this:

“THE Abbott Government is set to give the green light to
the nation’s biggest ever military purchase allowing Defence to order up
to 86 American made stealth fighter jets for the RAAF.


The planes will cost about $90 million each when they roll off the
assembly line between 2018 and 2020 and the overall project will cost
some $14 billion during the 30-year life of the F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter.”

and this:

“THE Abbott government will spend $4 billion buying eight highly-sophisticated P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol planes for
the Royal Australian Air Force. The US-built aircraft will be delivered
in 2017 to replace the Cold War-era P3 Orion aircraft. The Poseidon
will come equipped with torpedoes and harpoon missiles to destroy
submarines and warships.”

and this:

“Australia announced plans Thursday for a fleet of giant high-tech unmanned drones to
help patrol the nation’s borders, monitoring energy infrastructure and
attempts to enter the country illegally. Prime Minister Tony Abbott said
the Triton Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, which can remain airborne for 33
hours, would be based in the southern city of Adelaide. A report in
February said seven of the US-made drones would be purchased for Aus$3
billion ($2.7 billion), but Abbott said the details of how many and when
had yet to be finalized.”

It seems we have money to buy planes and drones from the US and who
knows what from South Korea, but we have no money for locally made
submarines.

“Senator Johnston told the Australian Strategic Policy
Institute conference this morning that he was “still working (on) the
problem” of what sort of submarines should be built in SA. He also
confirmed that building 12 submarines was no longer a Government policy…and that the specific number was now an “aspiration”.


Senator Johnston also echoed Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s stance that
building boats was about Defence capability not job creation.”

This seems to be at odds with their previous stance recognising the need for ship building in South Australia.  Perhaps the election result changed their minds.

“The Abbott government is also aware that it needs to
make decisions quickly to address the looming so-called “valley of
death” in the shipbuilding industry. This refers to the gap in
shipbuilding work that will come about when the Air Warfare Destroyer
project is complete.”

I am just wondering what we intend to do with all these weapons of
war since the only people we are at war with is unarmed asylum seekers. I
mean, seriously, does anyone truly believe that China is going to
invade us using military force when we are giving them the country
without firing a shot? And just what would Tony do if his unmanned
drones detected an invasion fleet?


I have respect for our military and the job they do but when we are
all being told we must help with the heavy lifting (instead of rising on
the promised tide) how about we spend some of those billions on
productive things rather than new toys for generals and admirals.