Find your Local Liberal

See it and Read it First
  • Newspaper

  • The Defence Minister's bluff

    06/05/11

    Today’s announcement by Defence Minister Stephen Smith that his Department would cut 1,000 civilian staff in order to help bail out Labor’s hopeless addiction to debt and deficit is a cynical attempt to hide what is really happening in Defence.

    The staffing cut would reportedly save $300 million but what the Minister fails to mention is that his own Government commissioned a Defence Budget Audit which concluded Defence could lose 18 per cent of its civilian staff without affecting performance.

    Shadow Defence Minister David Johnston said the review, completed by George Pappas in 2008, highlighted a ‘high degree of duplication and fragmentation’ concluding that around 4,000 civilian positions could go – approximately 18 per cent of APS positions.

    “While ignoring the advice in their own audit, successive Labor Defence Minister’s handed back to government coffers around $2 billion in the past two years because overwhelmed with inertia they failed to spend it on key projects that would help support our uniform personnel,” Senator Johnston said.

    Senator Johnston said the announcement today was a further sign the 2009 White Paper and its much vaunted Strategic Reform Program is officially in the shredder, even though as recently as March this year Defence revealed more and more staff were being employed to work on its ‘implementation’.

    This year there are 1,200 public servants working on the White Paper, set to blow out to more than 2,000 by 2014 – all working on a plan long declared by Defence analysts as unaffordable and unachievable.

    “This must be one of the biggest broken promises of this Labor Government and here is the Minister pretending that he is doing his bit for the Budget next week.”

    “It’s time he owned up to the Australian taxpayer and ADF personnel and their families as to what is really going on in his own Department,” Senator Johnston said.
Back To Top

Search News

GET INVOLVED

Connect with David Johnston

David Johnston

Shadow Minister for Defence

FIND YOUR ELECTORATE

NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP

Liberal logo

LIBERAL PARTY OF AUSTRALIA

Authorised by Brian Loughnane, Liberal Party of Australia, Cnr Blackall & Macquarie Streets, Barton ACT 2600
Bookmark | Print Page | Disclaimer | Privacy | Copyright | Contact