Well said Sasha, although a bit harsh on Paul Daley.
Besides a chronic lack of practical and intelligent leadership, Defence has shrouded itself in secrecy, partly as an over reaction to security requirements in the 'war on terror',but more as a means of avoiding the scrutiny of outsiders, which is you and me and every other tax payer, mother and father.
Vet Affairs do not know what soldiers are going through in Afghanistan, so how can it hope to help them.
We are asked to supporty our troops overseas, but what is it that we are supporting?
Why would young Australians join the ADF when it is so dysfunctional and so lacking in direction?
Bruce Haigh

Sasha Uzunov wrote 31 March 2009:

"The Australian media have ... ended the cheerleading routine in reporting how tough the Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon was in his war with his own Defence Department. ..."

As a former resident of the Defence Department universe (including a week pretending to be a one star officer in HQ ADF and a day in a borrowed uniform on exercise with the US Navy), I have some sympathy for the Minister. I spent about nine years trying to convince the DoD that the Internet was a good idea: http://www.acs.org.au/president/1997/travel/tt97/adfasem.htm

However, the defence bureaucracy is ponderous partly out of necessity. Military systems are large, complex and expensive by their nature. If you decide you need a new weapon system, it takes a decade or two to select, build, test and train people to use. If you rush this process, the result can be something which costs a lot and kills the wrong people.

After some failures with custom built equipment, buying old stuff and trying to upgrade it, there is a tendency now for Defence to buy proven off-the-shelf equipment. An example of this is the decision to buy F/A-18F Super Hornet aircraft. However, this approach can leave Australia too dependent on a foreign supplier. In the case of the decision to buy the EA-18G "Growler" electronic warfare version of the Super Hornet, this is probably a step too far. Australia will likely need to customise the systems on this aircraft itself. This creates a high risk of cost and time overruns, but there may be no alternative: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/04/australian-electronic-warfare-aircraft.html