Just to put into perspective what a 3% real increase in the Defence budget amounts to over a decade, the table below shows how a baseline budget of $25 billion would evolve over ten years …
Debate: "Policy, guns and money"
Andrew Davies has a good stab at the nexus between government revenues and the defence budget in his recent post, but I think he might be giving the government a bit too much latitude. The …
Regular contributor Peter Layton drew my attention to the final chart in the ‘Tax Chartacular’ at the Mark the Graph blog. It shows Australia’s total taxation burden 1959–2011 as a proportion of the nominal GDP. It …
On Monday we promised to provide some suggestions for implementing the recent 364-page report from the Senate Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Reference Committee on ‘Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects’. Today we’ll discuss one …
I think that Alex Tewes has created a ‘straw man’ version of my argument in his rejoinder rather than dealing with my serious suggestions. My proposal to make Defence leadership’s views public, as well as …
The recent Senate committee report ‘Procurement procedures for Defence capital projects’ was naturally of great interest to us, concerned as it was with our core business. We weren’t dispassionate observers of the process either; we …
One of the things I like about Jim Molan is the relish and obvious enthusiasm with which he brandishes his lance at the many windmills that rise out of Russell Hill. However, I was dismayed …
In his post on Duncan Lewis’ speech to ASPI, Peter Jennings gave us a good round up of the Secretary’s intent. Peter outlines three messages: match aspirations to the government-allocated funds; save and be efficient; …
Defence Secretary Duncan Lewis’ speech to ASPI last week was a message (put nicely) to his own organisation to toughen up: stop squealing about spending cuts and start rebuilding the organisation to handle a harder …
Today the government announced that the RAAF will have 12 of its recently acquired fleet of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter aircraft equipped with the ‘Growler’ electronic warfare jammer package at a cost of $1.5 …
Ever since the government slashed defence spending back in May, they’ve copped a shellacking in the press. In case you haven’t caught up, here’s a selection of what’s being said: Hugh White (Australian National University) …
Andrew’s recent chart demonstrated how Australia’s defence spending equals the combined budgets of the five biggest spending ASEAN countries. Charts like this do a great job of communicating the magnitudes of spending involved, and put …