ASPI 2007 Defence Budget Summary

ASPI 2007 Defence Budget Summary

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) released a report today titled 2007 Defence Budget Summary.

ASPI highlights the Government's continuing and significant commitment to the Defence budget, and acknowledges the Government's commitment of 3 per cent real growth per annum in Defence spending until 2015-16.

Since the Coalition Government came to power in 1996, the Defence budget has increased from $10.6 billion in 1995-96 to $22.0 billion in 2007-08, which represents a real increase of about 47 per cent during this time.

ASPI commends improvements in Defence procurement, financial accounts management, and near-term planning and budgeting, and acknowledges the importance of investment to maintain the overall attractiveness of military service.

Since 2001 the Government has committed some $3.8 billion to boost ADF recruitment and retention through a range of new initiatives and measures.

I am also pleased to report that last financial year, Defence enlisted 8924 people into the ADF – one of the best results in 30 years and 1125 more enlistments than in the previous financial year. This compares with the lowest achievement in 1992 of 2380 enlistments.

These good recruitment results show we are heading in the right direction
.
As recently announced, this is a notable result at a time when Australia's economy is robust, with the lowest unemployment rate for 30 years. This is especially so when employers are competing for people with the same professional skills and technical and trade aptitudes keenly sought by the ADF.

Another Government initiative is the ADF Gap Year program. This program will provide young Australians with the opportunity to gain skills and experience that will be valuable in their future studies and employment prospects – while earning between $30,000 and $46,000. Places are filling up quickly. In the first fortnight, Defence received more than 500 applications, 12,000 enquiries and over 33,000 visits to the ADF Gap Year website.

While ASPI's report provides a fair summary of the complexities of the Defence budget, it does overlook some significant reforms.

ASPI's paper focuses on the 2000 Defence White Paper and the 2001 Defence Capability Plan without detailing the substantial improvements to the major capital acquisition process. Significant steps have been undertaken by the Defence Materiel Organisation to implement the recommendations by the Government's Kinnaird Review. The Government's recent major purchases of C-17 aircraft, Air Warfare Destroyers, and equipping the enhanced the land force are testament to this successful implementation.

While ASPI states that there are some delays in planned expenditure for major capital acquisition, the number of delays is small and ASPI fails to acknowledge that delays are mostly indicative of a reassessment of industry capacity to deliver projects in the planned timescales.

The Government, through the Defence budget, has also invested $215m over 10 years to the Skilling Australia's Defence Industry program - launched in 2004 - to increase new training initiatives for Defence industry to build and maintain a variety of specialised skills.

Defence is working in an increasingly complex strategic and operational environment. The improvements and positive messages highlighted by ASPI are evidence of the investment and effort the Government has expended in Defence over recent years.

ENDS

© Scoop Media