Part of the problem with Australian Defence procurement is that the available pool of good people in Canberra is very small.

Get Defence back to a major city and it will be able to attract people from a bigger pool. Currently good people in Canberra rise to the top quickly by zigging and zagging around the public service.

Poor performers cannot be sacked, can go no further and are happy to remain doing a poor job because they have little ambition to progress or improve themselves. Their management cannot do anything about poor performers if they want to remain in the system themselves, as long as a poor performer meets the majority of their performance indicators, they are doing a "reasonable" job.

Only one of those indicators (out of possibly 15 other measures) may be the delivery of functional, good quality and supportable equipment to the warfighters.

The imposition of corporate standards from industry by Dr Gumly is tempered by the Public Service act and various industrial relations acts .. you can't get rid of or do anything about poor performance in the Canberra Public Service. So while they can reward, they cannot punish.

Go to one of the Canberra defence buildings canteens any morning of the week and see hordes of public servants sitting for hours chatting and drinking coffee, while all signed on "flexy time", try that in private industry!

There is a social culture in defence in Canberra that is uninhibited by the actual role of supply the ADF.

Close it down, move it to Melbourne or Sydney and fix it .. it's a failed experiment.

mind you, why don't we move all immigrants, however they come to Canberra to grow the city? Why do we let them settle in Sydney or Alice Springs? I mean, surely if the politicians are happy to be there and make decisions for the country about immigration, why not grow our capitol first?

Very thought provoking. Almost too kind to the Naval hierarchy.

Lack of accountability at the top seems the main problem.

For any major weapons system or personnel stuffup responsibility can be so evenly shifted between:

- senior military officers (though female officers seem to draw disproportionate blame)

- Defence public servants

- DMO

- foreign and local prime contractos

- sub-contractors

- current Ministers

- previous Ministers same Government

- previous Ministers, previous Government, now in Opposition

The buck lands nowhere. Nothing sticks.

One common denominator in the naval (worst service performer) problems is Chief of Navy, Admiral Crane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Crane . He appears to be perplexed, distant and always on the side of the angels regarding each of the endemic naval problems.

He must have a special gift of spin in avoiding responsibility. Defence Ministers clearly accept his assurances that however bad things are no-one, least of all Ministers, or senior officers, will need to accept any blame.

Pete

In the face of all this adversity, all this condemnation, we still have time to pose with pompous politicians, assist in disaster zones and pull idiot civilians out of the drink in 50 degree latitudes.

well not quite wakatak, Minister Smith's recent outburst about HMAS Kanimbla, Manoora, and Tobruk was because they were not able to assist (if required) in recent cyclone disaster support in north Queensland.

It's a very inefficient defence force, way overspends underachieves and panders to the overblown egos of some of our military who seem to not understand we're a small nation and cannot be like the USA or UK or China, and expect public servants to go out and buy a minimum of equipment, badly to make us seem we can play with the big boys .. we're a pissant country, once again trying to puff ourselves up into something we are not.

honestly, we do this all over the place, defence, climate change drama, arts and film, alternative energy, Julia Gilliar memorial halls, places on the UN security council, giving adive to all and sundry on how to run the world and all we do is draw attention from the rest of the world to our shortcomings and "look at me" stupidity.

we need to have a bloody good look at ourselves, stop p*ssing away the wealth of country by governments on dreams and ego trips, and then tell us we can't afford to look after pensioners .. what? But we can waste billions on climate change mitigation, home insulation, solar and other green dreams, NBN and the list goes on how much we waste .. if you ran a household like this you'd be called, "irresponsible"

A Defence Force full of inefficiency and expensive underachievers eh?

Tell that to the Members of each of the three Services sent on multi billion dollar illegal invasions based on a load of cooked up garbage simply to prop up the political ambitions of a gutless draft dodging coward.

How the hell Defence is connected to your hysterical rant on NBN, solar, global warming, insulation and Green Dreams is a mystery unto the Fairies.

One suggests you get the facts first Amicus...then distort them later.

Hi Amicus

I agree with Wakatak that its best to stick to defence sector points.

Scattergun condemnations of the whole political system just weaken this whole thread.

Gary has written a serious essay based on decades of writing on defence issues which (I think) deserve on-point comments.

BTW core departments like Defence will not pick up and move to state capitals - its a pipedream.

Pete

Pete

fair enough, I got a little off track there .. I work with Dept Defense, and the last few years the waste I am seeing is getting worse - the accountability less, same as the NBN and everything else I mentioned

so at the top you have military people who delegate the development of new capability requirements by the ADF to less experienced people .. because the best of our ADF are out drving ships, flying planes or leading men .. not driving desks in Canberra, then those requirements are passed to DMO where public servants who mostly have little idea about weapon systems and platforms go and procure based on trying to buy the cheapest items, reduced risk and stay within their measurement guidelines .. so why, if all that sounds like a perfect recipe for procurement does so much go wrong?

yes pete I know defence won't move to a major city, I also know that while you have such a small pool of available people, like Canberra, then you are stuck with a mediocre public service

nothing is going to change there

currently though, the ALP in government is making few defence decisions at all .. to save money, so it drags the process down even further

wakatk .. how does you reference to a draft dodging coward relate to Australia being in Timor, or Solomon Islands, or Sudan .. or even Afghanistan, I suspect you mean President GW Bush, who left office in 2008 .. so why are we still there .. if that's what it's all about .. get YOUR facts straight is what I might suggest

[Deleted for abuse.]

Here is another one, Gary.

The purchase of the F-18 fighters was a disgrace. As usual, Australia chose to purchase an aircraft that was still on the drawing board instead of one which had just come into service and was in the air.

The fighter we should have bought was the magnificent F-15 fighter, a long range aircraft with stunning performance. The airforce wanted a twin engined fighter with mach 2 performance and the only serious rival was the still unbuilt F-18. The Defence Department rejected the F-15 on the grounds of cost, they claimed its $25 million dollar price tag was too expensive.

Byt the time the F-18 was built, its price had ballooned to $35 million each, and its performance was so woeful (only mach 1.8) that the US Navy which ordered it, came close to cancelling the entire project.

Australia ended up with a short range fighter with a speed below specification which cost 30% more than than the F-15. What made the whole thing more galling, was that the F-15 can be built in a version which makes it an ideal bomber, with 95% parts commonality with the fighter version.

Anyone who remembers the Lockheed bribery scandals of the 1970's might be forgiven for thinking that somebody in the Defence Department has their fingers in the till.

It may be that Australia needs to be less ambitious in the kind of defence force we are and want to be.

It seems all the big mistakes in procurement especially occur when we try for a unique Australian solution, or in the case of our airforce, something so leading edge that we can barely afford it and if it has problems we squeal about it usually because it is well beyond our control.

Regardless of wakatak's personal attack on Amicus's opinion, Amicus makes a similar point to the author "you can't get rid of or do anything about poor performance in the Canberra Public Service. So while they can reward, they cannot punish."

So there is no real downside to risk taking on procurement in our Defence Department, a military person might be punished, but never a public servant, there is no mechanism for it is there?

Morale and behavior, what do you do about people who behave badly, when they see poor behavior covered up for sports stars and other high profile people who seem to be able to get away with all but murder?

Currently with recruitment levels very low, the navy is doing all it can to retain people and punishing people is believed to affect morale, so the command folks are caught between trying to enforce discipline and the marketeers who are trying to recruit.

No answers there from me .. both these problems require cultural changes and that's so large that it's difficult to know where to start.

Amicus I agree very much with your claims about increasing waste within the public service and less and less accoutability (despite official rhetoric to the contrary).

However in many departments particularly Defence many of the senior executive come from outside Canberra and some serving officers from all over. Even amon civilian personnel, many incumbents have transferred or come from the private sector to Canberra from those major cities.

There are huge problems with recruiting in many public departments much of it due to the absurdity of generic selection criteria and a non-transparent merit process, but that is Australia-wide.

The waste within DMO is largely due to poor practices, dodgy contract deals and lack of accountability and if it is like many other departments, it is because there have been cuts made to lower level staff who perform the most critical of duties, but are seen as expendable when the efficiency dividend comes around.

The success of any organisation comes from the ground up and the failures within government come from seeing the world from the top down.

In revision Moderator, one can only assume you obtained your definition of abuse from the mine host of Friar Wabbott's Sunday School.

The thing about the purchase of our war equipment, is it some genuine trade person or persons looking at the design and determining if it is suitable, or a member of the government without any knowledge, being loaded with goodies, and approving the sale, without knowing a thing about its design, worthiness or suitability, just that the vendor is "a friend"

Are well the Opposition seem to be taking my advice of March 4 [bottom of second comment on this thread] on the accountability of Chief of Navy, Admiral Crane, but no Party is paying me...bugger!

ABC Online reported, March 7 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/07/3157430.htm:

"Opposition spokesman David Johnston says the Government was misled.

...He says the Chief of Navy must be held responsible for passing on the incorrect advice.

I want some accountability. I think the minister wants some accountability. He's got to go and get it.

...If the Chief of Navy is giving advice on such an important issue as amphibious ship lift in the face of a serious cyclone in North Queensland and that information is not true, I think it speaks for itself.

The Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Crane, and the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, were approached for an interview but declined to comment."

Pete

Houlley I cannot agree with you about the prevalence of drink spiking. It is a real problem - one cannot argue women should take responsibility for risky behaviours and then broadly claim that drink spiking claims are largely overstated. I have family in law enforcement and the problem is not overstated, and one that necessitates the involvement of community educators.

There would be no need then to take responsibility for safe behaviours if there are few risks involved - clearly there are risks otherwise we wouldn't be talking about teaching safe behaviours.

Maybe you did not mean the statement as it sounded. The case I was referring to was definitely not made up as a later regret. The girl in question was drugged to passing out stage and was treated at a hospital. There is nothing more hurtful to a victim and her family when these sorts of generalisations are made. Each case has to be taken as an individual one on the evidence provided including hospital testing, evidence from bystanders, witnesses if there are any.

You seem to only focus heavily on the notion of dubious allegations of rape rather than actual rape. Why is that? I am not being facetious but just interested in why the tendency to pull out the false claim defence. Clearly not all rape allegations are false.

One can be sympathetic to the minefield and harm caused by false accusations while still being attentive and proactive in legitimate rape situations.

Ummm pelican

I think it possible your post about drink spiking was place on this Defence thread in error.

Pete

Thanks Pete - a too quick click on the wrong heading. Will copy and paste if that is allowed in the right thread. Wondered where it went to. :(

I've mentioned this before, but I'll do it again. It is all so simple only bureaucrats, academics & politicians could fail to understand.

Much of the navy problem is politics.

We built subs in Adelaide for no reason but politics, It certainly was a silly place to build them. It had nothing to do with navy, or even the bureaucrats.

Labor bought a sub design from a country which doesn't have a navy. Why? Politics, & payola can be the only reasons, & I doubt it enriched an admiral. Oh, the boats were a catastrophe, but have now been sorted.

They have trouble getting out of sight before breaking down, because they have so few engineering crew capable of changing the oil in your Holden that the whole sub service couldn't run a service station.

While they operate from Perth, [another political decision] they will not improve. The men [or their wives] won't go there.

We built a batch of Patrol boats in Cairns for gods sake. Would it surprise you if I suggested that was another political decision. If it did, you would be pretty simple. Can any one imagine some non political reason to build navy ships in a tourist town? No I thought not.

Now to the amphibious capability.

Manoura, & Kinambla are very old ships. They are so old that they would have been retired long ago, if they were merchant ships. They are shot, & have been for years.

Still, they could have struggled on a bit longer if well maintained. Guess what? The politics stuffed even that. When Kanimbla had her last refit it was scheduled for Garden Island, [Sydney] where all the facilities are available. That was until politics got in the way. The unions wanted the work for the floating dock in Newcastle. The fact that they did not have tradesmen qualified to do some of the work was not allowed to get in the way.

So don't blame the admiral, or even the bureaucrats, it's Ruddy & Julia this stuff up is down to, no one else.

Continued

Continued

Our navy did a pretty good job of turning a couple of clapped out old US navy tank landing ships, [only expected to be used once or twice] into something pretty useful. They have done such a good job that the yanks are going to do something similar, only with new ships.

The first of their replacements should be well on the way to being fitted out in Melbourne by now, but it has only just been launched in Spain. I wonder why. I also wonder if there will be anyone left to run the things by the time they're commissioned.

I wonder how many realise todays navy is not run by admirals, captains, or even petty officers, as it once was, modern navies are are run by leading seaman. It's these young blokes, the equivalent of an army Sargent, who run the machinery. If you don't have a bunch of them who know their ships machinery, & can service, & repair that machinery, you have something like a floating restaurant, which must remain tied to the wharf.

These blokes don't seem to be too highly valued. I guess the skipper sees himself leading a flotilla of destroyers rushing into battle, rather than a bunch of oily sweaty mechanics. It may surprise some of them that if the machinery doesn't work, they can't even fire their guns, today that takes electricity.

It takes a smart bloke, well trained, & interested to make modern war ships go. Until our navy realise this, & value their mechanics a bit more highly they will struggle to get anything to sea. There are companies who will value the good ones very highly, & treat them like royalty. You can't run ships with the dregs.

Sure Manoora's gearboxes are shot, but they could battle on. I have a suspicion that the reason she is being decommissioned is because they can't crew her, like the subs.

The crew on Kanimbla reckon she is better now than she was a couple of years ago, & wonder just what is going on, with her suddenly declared unseaworthy.