There will be much celebration of the Royal Australian Navy’s achievements at this week’s Indo-Pacific Sea Power Conference and maritime exposition. They are significant. Five years of Indo-Pacific Endeavour activities have demonstrated the navy’s ability …
A key challenge for the defence budget is inflation, which eats into not just the average Aussie family’s buying power, but also the government’s. The higher the rate of inflation, the more the defence budget …
Confusion reigns in discussions about the cost of the Department of Defence’s equipment projects. Whether we’re talking about media articles, parliamentary committee hearings, letters to the editor, duelling internet commentators or any other forms of …
The government delivered a barrage of missile announcements over the past couple of days. It’s not easy to distinguish what’s new from a semi-announcement of something that’s already been announced or is an existing part …
In a speech to Australia’s parliament last night, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Zelensky asked for ‘wonderful’ Bushmaster troop carriers, which he said could significantly help his country. Nations such as Australia should help arm those …
The 2022–23 defence budget is a conflicted program. In key ways it acknowledges and responds to a changing world, but in others it is a relic of an earlier time. Let’s start with the funding …
Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an increase of 18,500 to the Department of Defence’s full-time workforce by 2040. I’ll spare you the (semi-)snarky commentary about (semi-)announcements this time and get straight to unpacking …
One of my colleagues told me on Monday morning that we were going to get a ‘semi-announcement’ on Australia’s submarine basing that day. The government has been making quite a lot of semi-announcements lately about …
A week and a half since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, here are nine observations of the key aspects and developments in the most serious conflict in Europe since World War II. Observation 1 Just as …
When the United States offered to evacuate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky two days after Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of his country, he replied, ‘The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.’ Many …
It’s a brutal time to be a Commonwealth public servant working on the budget. Portfolio additional estimates statements—the mid-year budget update for portfolio agencies—were tabled on Friday, yet with the 2022–23 budget brought forward to …
The latest revelations about the Royal Australian Navy’s Hunter-class frigates confirm much of what we knew about the problems besetting the program, but add a level of granularity far beyond the general admissions made by …
