Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s National Press Club address on Wednesday foreshadowed a major role for the Australian Defence Force in responding to natural disasters. From Operation Sovereign Borders to the Pacific ‘step-up’, the Department of …
Australian defence reviews always wail about fuzzy accountability and indirect responsibility. The critique was immortalised by Defence Department Secretary Allan Hawke, back in 2000, when he decried ‘a culture of learned helplessness among some Defence senior …
Australia’s Defence Department is a big beast that’s hard to ride, much less steer. The complexities of kit, costs and strategy have made it the most inquiry-prone animal in Canberra—50 reviews in five decades (35 …
Defence’s worst kept secret is now officially public. Defence Minister Linda Reynolds stated at last week’s Sea Power conference in Sydney that the Defence Department is conducting a strategic review. It may not be a …
Is Australia’s Department of Defence one big beast or a herd of beasts? Is the Oz military a single tribe or a bunch of tribes? The questions matter in many ways, not least because the …