Page 6 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

6 EDITORIAL
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
NIGEL PITTAWAY | MELBOURNE
www.australiandefence.com.au
GROUP EDITOR: Ewen Levick Email: ewenlevick@yaffa.com.au Mob: 0447 961 544
EDITOR: Nigel Pittaway Email: nigelpittaway@yaffa.com.au Mob: 0418 596 131
SENIOR CORRESPONDENT – SYDNEY: Julian Kerr Email: jhrhkerr@bigpond.net.au Tel: (02) 02 9960 4054 Mob: 0418 635 823
MULTIMEDIA REPORTER: Roya Ghodsi Email: royaghodsi@yaffa.com.au Mob: 0458 484 619
NATIONAL SALES MANAGER: Michael Flanagan
Email: michaelfl nagan@yaffa.com.au Mob: 0403 238 440
PUBLISHER: Tracy Yaffa Email: tracyyaffa@yaffa.com.au
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Kylie Leonard Email: kylieleonard@yaffa.com.au
BOOKS EDITOR: Peter Masters Email: petermasters@ngvemail.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS GREATMAGAZINES.COM.AU
CALL 1800 807 760
EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS@YAFFA.COM.AU
MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS TO Subscription Department, Australian Defence Magazine GPO Box 606 Sydney NSW 2001
MANAGING DIRECTOR: Tracy Yaffa PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Matthew Gunn STUDIO MANAGER: Lauren Esdaile DESIGNER: Maria Alegro MARKETING MANAGER: Lucy Yaffa
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION: John Viskovich Tel: (02) 9213 8215 Email: johnviskovich@yaffa.com.au
AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE MAGAZINE (ADM) is published in the second week of each month by Yaffa Media Pty Ltd
ACN 002 699 354.
17-21 Bellevue Street Surry Hills NSW 2010, Tel: (02) 9281 2333
Australian Defence Magazine also publishes the weekly newsletter ADM Today
and the Directory Industry Guide every six months.
Copyright ©2022
All material appearing in ADM is copyright. Reproduction in whole or in part is not permitted without permission in writing from the publisher. The publishers accept sole responsibility for the contents of this publication, which may in no way be taken to represent the views of the Department of Defence, the Australian Defence Force or any other agency of the Commonwealth of Australia.
AS I write these words in late March, a major war is underway in Europe – some- thing unthinkable perhaps just a decade ago. While the outcome of the conflict is uncertain at the present point, it’s clear that the much-feared Russian military is finding it very difficult to subdue a deter- mined resistance from people defending their homeland against unprovoked at- tack. Our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine and we can only hope for a quick and acceptable conclusion to the conflict, before many more people lose their lives and their cities and towns fur- ther laid to waste.
From a military tactics and weapons standpoint, ADM will leave the analysis to the experts, but we are keeping a close eye on the strategic situation and pos-
Defence itself has much to learn from the conflict in Ukraine too and I hope these learnings are translated into a force structure and acquisition policies and pro- cesses that keep abreast of rapid changes.
Given the current opacity of Defence however, it is difficult for us to gauge what is happening today – let alone ten years hence – and information concern- ing progress of major capability acqui- sition projects has to be gleaned from a range of sources. This is because the government and the department continue to either decline media requests, or issue bland statements patently not written by the subject matter experts themselves but someone in between who – it would seem to us – wishes to actively suppress mean- ingful information.
Bear in mind these media requests are not related to operational security issues, but to capability acquisition programs funded by us all as taxpay- ers. I’ll give two examples here, the first of which I’ve mentioned in an editorial before. When the AUKUS and nuclear- powered submarine announcement was made on 16 September last year, De- fence conducted a media round-table and invited further written questions. ADM’s questions remain unanswered, more than six months later.
The second example concerns the government’s 2018 announcement of the construction in Australia of a Pa- cific Support Vessel. In October 2021 we learned through Senate Estimates that plans to build the vessel locally had been scrapped. In a recent response to ADM’s questions, Defence declined to provide any further details, saying only that a suitable vessel had been identified and details will be released “in due course”.
You will note the two examples given above are both in the maritime domain; that’s because this is our major sea power issue and will be available to delegates at the Indo Pacific conference in Sydney in May. The ADM team will be there in force and we welcome your feedback and hope to see many of you at the show. ■
“ONE THING IS CLEAR: THE WORLD IS A MUCH MORE DANGEROUS PLACE THAN IT WAS IN THE YEARS
sible implications for our region. One thing is clear: the world is a much more dangerous place than it was in the years after the Berlin Wall came down and with an increasingly bellig- erent major power here in our own region, the time for complacency is over.
AFTER THE BERLIN WALL Again as these
CAME DOWN” words are writ- ten, we are await- ing the formal announcement of the federal election, which has to be held in May and by the time this issue is in your hands may be only days away. While it is gratifying to see broad bipartisan support for De- fence and defence industry in the light of changing geopolitical circumstances, it is disappointing to see national secu- rity has become an election issue. It’s perhaps time for bipartisan support which transcends party politics and both sides jointly commit to the secu-
rity of the country?