Rising calls for the Australian Government to confess to supplying weapons to Israel, which is on trial for genocide at The Hague, have been batted away. Are government MPs lying, or merely being economical with the truth? Monika Sarder reports.

For over three months, members of the Labor Government, including Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, have held the line that “Australia is not sending weapons to Israel and has not done so for the past five years”. This claim by Labor MPs has also been proliferating through a social media campaign allegedly combatting ‘disinformation’.

The reality is that Australia is a major exporter of military goods to Israel, and our government may at risk of being prosecuted for complicity in war crimes due to our export of F-35 bomber parts and other weapons being used in attacks on Gaza.

Despite the government’s attempts to cover up Australia’s weapons exports to Israel, minor parties and human rights groups have used what little accountability measures are available to challenge this claim.

Figures available from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade show that, in the six financial years from 2017-18, Australia has supplied $14.5 million dollars in arms and munitions to Israel.

Earlier this year, following questioning from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, it was revealed that over the same period Australia approved 322 military goods export licences to Israel.

Said Shoebridge: “[Foreign Minister] Penny Wong’s own department says in their published data that we have sent more than $10 million in arms and ammunition to Israel in the last five years.

“Then when we ask her in the Senate why she will not stop Australia’s arms exports to Israel, she stares you in the face, and says that Australia has not sent any arms or ammunition to Israel in the last five years.”

Wong’s response has been to duck the question: “I know there’s a lot of disinformation and misinformation circulating … I would encourage the senator [Shoebridge] to make sure that he does not contribute to that”.

Tricky accounting the excuse

So why is the government insisting that Australia’s weapons trade with Israel doesn’t exist? Put simply, it is a case of tricky accounting. Checkmate ABC has established that this claim is drawn from a narrow definition of weapons counts used by the UN Register of Conventional Arms (ROCA). ROCA’s aim is to provide a record of transfers of completed builds of weapons between countries.

These numbers do not include weapon parts, as this would result in double counting, and ROCA is only interested in the total weapons traded. Whilst excluding part counts is appropriate for ROCA’s purposes, such an exclusion is grossly inappropriate for the purpose of reporting on Australia’s weapons trade.

The arms trade consists of an extensive global supply chain of parts, services, and maintenance contracts. Australia’s own Defence and Strategic Goods List explicitly states that ‘parts and accessories’ are military goods for the purpose of export controls. Critically, the Arms Trade Treaty, which is aimed at preventing the transfer of arms for use in war crimes restricts the export of ‘parts and components.’

The heat is on Australia’s leaders — given that Germany’s Chancellor is now being sued over his complicity in the Gaza genocide, citing Germany’s weapons exports to Israel.

This might help explain the heightened *secrecy* over Australia’s exports to Israel of military… https://t.co/yYes9A5Kji pic.twitter.com/gepO9rlTsk

— Peter Cronau (@PeterCronau) February 28, 2024

 

The legal culpability of weapons parts exporters was clarified earlier this month when a Dutch appeals court ordered the government of the Netherlands to sto the export of F-35 bomber parts to Israel, citing a clear risk that it was being used to commit war crimes in Gaza.

In bringing their case before the Dutch court, Oxfam Netherlands and two other human rights organisations argued that the Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade and Development was obliged to reassess F-35 export licences once the overriding risk that the bomber was being used to commit and facilitate war crimes in Gaza became apparent.

The court accepted this argument, finding that the F-35 bombers had been used in ‘indiscriminate attacks’ on civilians, and that there was a clear risk that these attacks amounted to breaches of international humanitarian law. In making these findings, the court relied on evidence from the United Nations and Amnesty International showing that almost half of the bombs dropped by Israel on Gaza are ‘dumb bombs’ (i.e. unguided bombs that are generally not precise) and that targets had included hospitals, schools, refugee camps, homes, markets and religious buildings.

The court subsequently ordered the Netherlands government to stop all exports of F-35 parts within seven days.

Australia’s genocide risk

The Dutch ruling has implications for the legality of Australia’s export of weapons parts to Israel, in particular our export of F-35 parts. Australia has signed and ratified the Arms Trade Treaty, and has recognised the international obligations arising from the treaty in domestic law.

The treaty aims to reduce human suffering by limiting the availability of weapons for use in serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (aka ‘war crimes’). To achieve this, member states are required to refuse licences for the export of military goods where there is an overriding risk that the weapons will be used in such breaches. This requirement applies to both new and existing permits, meaning permits must be reassessed if the member state becomes aware that the goods are being used to commit war crimes.

Australia’s current export licences of weapons parts to Israel are almost certainly in breach of our domestic and international legal obligations. At present, over 70 Australian companies supply parts and maintenance to F-35 bombers. It is a matter of public record that every F-35 contains some Australian parts. Israel is already in possession of 50 F-35 craft and has placed an order for 25 more. 

I called on the Government today to stop the gaslighting and admit they are exporting weapons to the State of Israel, fueling the violence and destruction in Gaza.

People want Australia to be a force for good in the world, a force for peace. pic.twitter.com/ql4CUOTLZZ

— David Shoebridge (@DavidShoebridge) February 28, 2024

Over 70 Australian companies provide parts and maintenance to the F-35 program.

The government’s persistent gaslighting of the Australian public in relation to our weapons exports to Israel is reprehensible. It is time for transparency and accountability, the foundations of responsible government, to prevail.

There is currently a legal action underway, brought by the Australian Centre for International Justice and other human rights groups, to try and access information about Australian defence export permits to Israel since October 7. It should not take a court action for the Government to release this information. In the UK for example, information pertaining to requests for export permits – which includes the name of the company, the nature of the export, and the dollar amount – is readily available. 

Australians have the right to know whether their government is supplying weapons used to commit war crimes arms. Should the government continue supplying arms to Israel, they have a right to have these demands adjudicated in a court of law. The secrecy and mendacity must end.

Editor’s Note: The government has not come clean on the role of Pine Gap surveillance facilities in the war on Gaza and the Future Fund had not changed its position on its investment in the largest Israeli bomb-market Elbit Systems, even the the wake of the genocide action against Israel in the International Court of Justice.

Future Fund profits from bombing of Gaza thanks to Elbit investment

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Is the Cayman Islands-controlled operator of the Northern Beaches Hospital overcharging the government for public beds? It appears Brookfield is charging the local health authority more than twice the cost per bed than Royal North Shore Hospital. Michael West reports. 

“The taxpayer is paying almost $700 million per year to a company masquerading as a hospital operator which, at best, can deliver services for 250 public beds, yet the Royal North Shore Hospital, which has about 700 public beds, costs the taxpayer about $700 million a year to run.” 

This is the analysis of Andrew Gill, whose son Josh Gill died in tragic circumstances in the wake of hospital negligence at Northern Beaches in 2021. Gill, a lawyer, sued the hospital operator and settled confidentially – gaining a commitment that $11m would be spent on the youth mental health crisis – and has since campaigned to have the Hospital put back in public hands. 

The movement is gaining traction in the community with local MP Sophie Scamps, herself a doctor, raising the issue in recent days. That the Hospital operator never made good on its mental health commitment has helped. 

“It is disappointing that more than two years after the former NSW government announced funding for a four-bed youth mental health unit [in the wake of Josh Gill’s death], the Northern Beaches Hospital management has refused to provide the services.

“This raises a bigger question about whether this private hospital model is in our community’s interest. I am deeply concerned about the arrangements and I will await the outcome of the NSW audit into the hospital with great interest.” 

We reported last year in a joint investigation by MWM and Andrew Gill that the operator was not subject to financial penalties for its breaches, and that financial arrangements were highly skewed in favour of Healthscope/Brookfield.

Privatisation inquiry call: Cayman Island owners pay no penalty for Australian hospital fails

If the point of privatisation is to provide financial efficiencies for the public, it is doubtful this has been achieved – as the comparison with Royal North Shore would suggest. The greater issue, according to Andrew Gill, is the clear conflict of interest in having a hospital, an essential asset (and in this case a monopoly), run for profit for the benefit of a foreign financial engineering group. The lives versus profits conundrum.

Gill believes the group is in serial breach of its contractual obligations but there is no public record of specific breaches and medical negligence claims.

Numerous approaches have been made by MWM to the operator Healthscope (owned by Brookfield) and to the Northern Sydney Local Health District but both have failed to provide transparency either around the financial arrangements or of the breaches of their health services contracts.

As to the cost of putting NBH back in public hands, if the operator is in breach of its contract, which may be the case due to ‘Step-ins’ under the contract where medical breaches must be disclosed, then compensation to the operator could be contained.

 As for the audit on the NBH, he says there has been no recent announcement from the NSW Audit Office as to an audit being conducted on the NBH. “The potential for an audit on the NBH was announced in the 2023-26 Annual Work Program which was published on the NSW Audit Office website on or about 20 October 2023..

“As “follow the dollar” auditing now finally applies in NSW, the owners of the NBH should be very afraid if the NSW Audit Office does its job to protect the public from the grotesquely ravenous charging policies of the ultimate owner of our local public hospital, which is Brookfield Asset Management (a Canadian asset manager who specialises in owning global ‘infrastructure assets’) who boosts of having an asset position of over $1 trillion.

 In December 2014, NSW entered into a public-private partnership (PPP) to deliver the Northern Beaches Hospital. Under the terms of the PPP, the private sector designed, built, operates and maintains the new hospital which provides free public patient services as well as a range of services for private patients. 

“The Northern Beaches Hospital is a part of the Northern Sydney Local Health District and the private sector partner remains responsible for providing publicly-funded health services until October 2038. Using follow the dollar provisions, this audit may examine whether the Northern Beaches Hospital is delivering publicly-funded health services transparently, efficiently and effectively.” 

It is the word “may” which is key says Gill. “Again, very equivocal language … there is no guarantee that an audit will be held, which is disturbing when it seems very clear now that the taxpayer is paying [a fraction of the cost to operate RNS Hospital].”

Follow the dollar legislation passed in November 2022 and expanded the Auditor-General’s mandate by providing the power to conduct performance audits of any matter where public resources are used to deliver services to the community.

“In this way, the Auditor-General will be able to follow the dollar. That means the Auditor-General will be able to report to Parliament about whether total public resources allocated to a particular program have been managed and applied effectively, economically and efficiently and in compliance with all relevant laws. It will no longer matter whether the body delivering those services is a government or non-government entity.”

From the Northern Beaches of Sydney to the Northern Beaches of George Town, Cayman Islands

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The not-so-distinguished service of former Secretary of Home Affairs Mike Pezzullo ended in a blaze of ignominy, and there may be more coming. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling with the story.

Mike Pezzullo got a gong in the June 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours. The then Home Affairs Secretary was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for “distinguished service to public administration through leadership roles in the areas of national security, border control and immigration.”

Pezzullo joined the Defence Department in 1987 and, over more than three and a half decades, rose to a position of remarkable prominence in the national security establishment. ‘The Pezz’, as he was widely known, clawed his way to the top, becoming what one seasoned observer of Federal politics described as Canberra’s “most powerful, divisive, and yet indestructible bureaucrat.”

Yet in November 2023, Pezzullo was sacked from the top ranks of the Australian Public Service (APS).

The Home Affairs Secretary’s termination came within a week of the completion of a report by former APS Commissioner Lynelle Briggs, acting as a delegate for current APS Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, concerning reports about Pezzullo’s conduct that had been published by investigative journalists Nick McKenzie and Michael Bachelard.

Briggs’ conclusions were damning. She alleged Pezzullo had repeatedly breached the APS Code of Conduct, used his position as a Departmental Secretary to gain a benefit or advantage for himself, and “failed to maintain confidentiality of sensitive government information.”

Briggs further alleged Pezzullo failed to act apolitically in his employment, disclosed a conflict of interest, and “engaged in gossip and disrespectful critique of Ministers and public servants.”

Briggs’ findings were utterly at odds with any notion of ‘distinguished service to public administration’.

Swift termination

As bureaucratic and political executions go, it was an efficient affair, something that Pezzullo, an immensely experienced bureaucratic operator with a keen sense of history, may well have appreciated. After all, he had once called for the rival Attorney-General’s Department to be “put to the sword.”

Pezzullo would have known his days were numbered as soon as he learned that his highly inflammatory text messages with Liberal Party power broker Jamie Briggs (no relative of the former Public Service Commissioner) were in the hands of investigative journalists and would soon be published. His WhatsApp and Signal messages could presumably only be found on electronic devices belonging to only two people – Pezzullo himself and his confidante Briggs.

In their initial report, Nine Entertainment’s McKenzie and Bachelard were somewhat coy about how they had accessed “thousands” of private messages, saying, “This masthead [SMH, Age] and 60 Minutes learnt of the messages and their content via a third party who obtained lawful access to them. We reviewed them while investigating Briggs’ involvement in a tender process for a failed billion-dollar contract for a new visa processing system from Pezzullo’s department.”

The resultant story, published in the evening of Sunday, 24 September 2023, was a sensational scoop, with Pezzullo revealed to have used Briggs as a clandestine political back-channel to two Liberal Prime Ministers to undermine his political and public service enemies, promote the careers of right-wing politicians he valued as allies in bolstering his Home Security empire, and to lobby to censor the press while advocating criminal penalties for journalists who published classified information.

Revelation of Pezzullo’s highly unorthodox, indeed outrageous secret political manoeuvring immediately rendered his position untenable. The next morning, 25 September, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neill consulted with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and required Pezzullo to stand aside, albeit on full pay with a salary package exceeding $900,000 per annum, while she referred the matter to APS Commissioner Gordon de Brouwer, for an ‘expedited’ investigation.

Within a day de Brouwer had appointed former APS Commissioner Lynelle Briggs to conduct an inquiry into alleged breaches by Pezzullo of the APS Code of Conduct.

Acting Home Affairs Secretary Stephanie Foster told a Senate Estimates hearing in October that this was all a “significant shock” and lamented the “sustained and often distressing media reporting” about Pezzullo’s alleged misbehaviour and breaches of professional duty.

However, no information was forthcoming on Lynelle Briggs’ inquiry, with both Foster and APS Commission de Brouwer refusing at Estimates to reveal any details. De Brouwer flatly refused to discuss any “details of specific allegations, lines of inquiry, projected time frames or likely outcomes.”

Briggs took two months to complete her task. Pezzullo was accorded the opportunity to respond to her draft findings and recommendations, and his responses were apparently taken into account in the final report, which was provided to de Brouwer sometime shortly before 23 October.

Matters then moved very quickly, but before they could be finalised, there was one awkward issue that the Government needed to resolve.

The Pezzullo clause

Given what had been reported in the media, it was prima facie likely that Pezzullo would be found to have breached the APS Code of Conduct, and termination of his appointment would be recommended.

However, in a remarkable omission, the Federal Government’s Remuneration Tribunal’s determination of terms and conditions for departmental secretaries had no provision for dealing with a secretary and being sacked for breaches of the APS Code of Conduct. As things stood, if Pezzullo was terminated under section 59(1) of the Public Service Act 1999, he would still be entitled to 12 months of his reference salary of $804,062 as “compensation” for early termination of his appointment.

While Briggs proceeded to finalise her report, there was a scramble to deal with this potentially politically embarrassing problem.

In October, the Tribunal, comprised of then President John Conde and members Heather Zampatti and Stephen Conry, commenced an urgent review of compensation for loss of office by departmental secretaries.

Advice was obtained from the Australian Government Solicitor and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel, and on 17 November, just as Briggs was completing her report, the Tribunal wrote the departmental secretaries seeking urgent comment on proposed amendments that would remove a secretary’s eligibility for compensation if their appointment was terminated after, either a finding by the APS Commissioner that the secretary had breached the APS Code of Conduct, or, if the National Anti-Corruption Commission had found the secretary had “engaged in corrupt conduct of a serious and systemic nature.”

Three Secretaries responded, and on 22 November, the Tribunal wrote again, “clarifying the intent of the proposed amendments”. The next day, Wednesday, 23 November, the Tribunal held a meeting and approved what could be called the “Pezzullo clause”. There would be no payout.

The Chop

Perhaps coincidentally, or perhaps not, APS Commissioner de Brouwer hand-delivered the Briggs report to Prime Minister Albanese that same day, Wednesday, 23 November. Briggs recommended Pezzullo’s termination, and de Brouwer concurred. Pezzullo was now on the very fast track for ‘the chop’.

The Public Service Act provides that before recommending to the Governor-General to terminate a secretary’s appointment, the Prime Minister must have a report from the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) prepared in consultation with the APS Commissioner.

To that end, de Brouwer provided a copy of Briggs’s report to PM&C Secretary Professor Glyn Davis and to Albanese’s Chief of Staff, Tim Gartrell. First Assistant Secretary of PM&C’s Government Division, Andrew Walter, then rushed to prepare a submission to the Prime Minister and draft Federal Executive Council papers, circulating a draft to Davis and de Brouwer mid-afternoon on Saturday, 25 November. de Brouwer indicated his concurrence in less than an hour. Davis probably did likewise that evening, and the Prime Minister likely gave his approval sometime on Sunday.

Pezzullo’s execution came on the morning of Monday, 27 November, at an Executive Council meeting comprised of Governor-General David Hurley, the Prime Minister and one other Minister (possibly Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, who is also Minister for the Public Service or Home Affairs Minister O’Neill, both having also received a copy of the Briggs report).

Interestingly, the explanatory memorandum that accompanied Albanese’s recommendation to terminate Pezzullo provided no detail other than the briefest of statements that the Home Affairs Secretary had breached the APS Code of Conduct on “numerous occasions” and confirmation that the Public Service Act requirements for termination had been fulfilled.

The Governor-General signed and the Prime Minister counter-signed and Pezzullo’s public service career came to an end.

Secrecy

Pezzullo’s fall was arguably the most dramatic and significant downfall of a departmental secretary in the history of the Australian Federation.

Secretaries have been sacked before, indeed on many occasions, but never before on the grounds of misbehaviour and breach of duty such as those alleged in relation to Pezzullo.

‘The Pez’ had secured a place in history, though not perhaps the one he had dreamed of when he first joined the Defence Department so long ago.

The Government was careful to manage the news of Pezzullo’s demise while parliament sat on 27 November 2023. Albanese put out a very brief media release, confirming the Home Affairs Secretary’s sacking and noting that Pezzullo “fully cooperated with the inquiry”. However, he only did so after Minister O’Neill had finished a press conference on another matter.

The APS Commissioner followed with a slightly longer statement that indicated Briggs had found Pezzullo breached the APS Code of Conduct “on at least 14 occasions in relation to 5 overarching allegations.”. However, there were no further revelations.

De Brouwer acknowledged it was in the public interest for the overarching breach findings to be made public, but beyond that, the public service blinds were pulled down. De Brouwer declared:

No further information regarding the contents of the inquiry will be provided by the Australian Public Service Commission.

Not everyone agreed. On the Parliamentary cross-benches, there was a strong view that the public interest would be better served by a more fulsome disclosure of the Briggs report. The Albanese Government had pledged itself to be more transparent than its predecessor, and this was a test of just how far that commitment would go.

Two days after Pezzullo’s demise, independent Senator David Pocock moved in the Senate “That there be laid on the table by the Minister for the Public Service, by no later than 1 pm on 6 December 2023, the full copy of Ms Lynelle Briggs AO’s final report … following her recent inquiry into possible breaches of the APS Code of Conduct by Mr Michael Pezzullo.”

However, when the motion was put without debate to a vote, Pocock’s initiative was defeated by 31 votes to 17. The Senate cross-bench and Greens were all in favour,

while Labor and the Coalition joined forces to keep the Briggs report secret.

Where the bodies are buried

One might have thought that Prime Minister Albanese and Labor would have seen some political advantage in revealing more of a story that, at least on the face of it, largely concerned bureaucratic and political machinations during the former Coalition Governments of Prime Ministers Turnbull and Morrison.

Yet the Briggs report remains under wraps, neither publicly released nor discreetly “leaked” as an “exclusive” to a carefully chosen journalist.

Labor collateral damage?

In the course of his long career, Pezzullo developed deep links with Labor. In 1993, he joined the staff of then Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and stayed with Evans after Labor’s 1996 defeat. In 1997, he became a senior adviser and then deputy chief of staff to Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, serving in the latter role until Labor’s further defeat in 2001. During that period, Pezzullo first articulated his vision of Home Affairs as a national security super department.

Pezzullo returned to the Defence Department in 2002, quickly moving to the top ranks, later heading the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service and eventually leading his bureaucratic empire of Home Affairs. All the while, however, he maintained discrete links with Labor, in opposition and government.

In their exposé, McKenzie and Bachelard briefly refer to Pezzullo’s links with Labor right-wingers, notably former Senator Stephen Conroy, and his intrigues against Labor figures he saw as threats to his notional security empire, notably Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.

Although the Sydney Morning Herald’s primary focus was on Pezzullo’s relationship with Liberal operative Jamie Briggs, it’s quite possible his “thousands” of texts also shed rather more light on his relations with Labor figures than has been revealed.

At the time of Pezzullo’s sacking, Labor insiders worried that the former bureaucratic juggernaut “knows where all the bodies are buried”. Some wags jested that “The Pezz” had buried a few of those bureaucratic and political bodies himself.

Yet so far, Pezzullo has maintained a disciplined silence. Perhaps he’s waiting to see whether further developments are yet to play out.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Further investigations

On 27 November 2023, the day of Pezzullo’s demise, we lodged a Freedom of Information application with the Australian Public Service Commission seeking access to the Briggs inquiry report and any related correspondence from Commissioner de Brouwer to the Prime Minister.

This seemed not an unreasonable request in the public interest and it’s significant that Australia’s FOI law overrides the secrecy provisions of the Public Service Act related to Code of Conduct investigations.

After much delay, the Commission has released a heavily redacted copy of de Brouwer’s letter of transmittal to Albanese. The Commission flatly refused to release the Briggs Report, not one paragraph, not one word.

The reasons include claims that the Briggs report contains information received in confidence as well as legal advice obtained by the government from an external law firm.

It is also asserted that the Briggs report includes information that, if disclosed, “would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to the security, defence or international relations of the Commonwealth.”

Failure to maintain confidentiality

However, and perhaps most significantly, the Public Service Commission has also claimed exemption from disclosure of information that,

if revealed, could prejudice the conduct of a law enforcement investigation.

The Commission’s FOI decision-maker has stated, “I am satisfied that disclosure [of the Briggs Report] could reasonably be expected to prejudice the conduct of future investigations and other processes in a particular case … Accordingly, I find that the [Report] is exempt …”.

It remains to be seen whether these exemptions from transparency will hold up under review, at least as far as the entirety of the Briggs report is concerned.

Meantime, however, it appears that the matter of Michael Pezzullo may not yet be fully resolved.

Just what future law enforcement or other investigation might be involved can only be a matter of speculation, though it is of note that the published findings of the Briggs report include a finding that Pezzullo “failed to disclose a conflict of interest”.

Yes to Kathryn Campbell’s plum job Prime Minister, but why?

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is hoping today’s announcement about the restructuring of the Royal Australian Navy will keep us all feeling happy and safe. Rex Patrick warns a lot of caution is required.

On 16 September 2021 then Prime Minister Scott “from marketing” Morrison used his AUKUS announcement to bury the fact he was cancelling the troubled Attack Class submarine program – years wasted and $3B shredded. Today Defence Minister Richard Marles used the thrill of new purchases to bury the fact that Navy procurement is still an utter shambles.

After today’s announcement, we’ll see our navy moving forward as follows.

Submarines

There was no new announcement on our submarines; the status quo remains.

Our sailors will be sent to sea for the next decade on six aging Collins Class submarines that were supposed to retire in 2026. The life-of-type extension planned to keep them going will cost the taxpayer more than $6B dollars.

Sometime in the mid-2030s, if we can get the United States Congress to match Prime Minister Albanese’s $US5B submarine industry support donation (which Congress declined to match last week), and if isolationist and erratic Donald Trump doesn’t get elected, we’ll have the first of three Virginia Class submarines appear alongside a naval base in WA.

That’s the initial deal – if it happens. A decade will pass, and we might get some US-built vessels at full price plus a $5B sweetener. No significant Australian industry involvement in construction. Apparently, no refund if it all falls over.

We’ll then switch from the highly capable Virginia Class submarine to an unknown and unbuilt new design, the AUKUS-SSN, developed by the UK’s shipbuilding industry that has persistently been late and over budget on naval construction.

I just want a Ferrari, sorry, a nuclear submarine, no matter the cost

Air warfare destroyers

According to Marles, upgraded air defence and strike capability will be procured for our three Air Warfare Destroyers, but apart from that, it’s status quo.

The Government did announce that it will announce the Air Warfare Destroyer replacement program in the future.

Future frigates

There will be a reduction in the number of future frigates from nine to six, simultaneously raising the unit cost of the ships (assuming the budget remains at $45B for each of these ships, the price has gone from $5B per vessel to $7B per vessel) while reducing our anti-submarine capability, at a time when we have a record number of submarines in our region, with that threat only likely to grow further.

Whilst we’re buying nuclear submarines to station off ports in China, the Chinese Navy already has nuclear submarines to station off Sydney heads and Rottnest Island near Perth. The Chinese submarine commander’s job just got a bit easier today.

Marles mauled as Future Frigates farce lights up Defence fracas

General purpose frigates

The one positive announcement from today is the procurement of 11 general-purpose frigates, though the term corvette might be more appropriate for these smallish vessels.

There was little detail in the announcement today, but It’s reasonable to assume that Defence will eventually select some design of a ship that has not been fielded and try to load it up with ‘RAN special sauce’, an approach that added risk and guaranteed that future frigates blew out in cost and schedule.

The first three of these vessels look to be built overseas. That’s Australian jobs exported.

‘Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels’

The media loves novelty, and today’s announcement was loaded up with an exciting new element: six “Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels”. Cynics might think that these ships might be a solution to the Navy’s chronic recruitment and retention problems, and fielding autonomous platforms might help with that.

However, the thing to understand is that this is another ambitious venture into new and largely untried technology when the Navy and Defence really can’t afford another major project failure. Perhaps these still drawing board concept boats might be great, but one would want to see a lot more detail before seeing this as an assured capability that will be delivered on time and on budget.

Offshore patrol vessels

If you haven’t heard of the OPVs, these are vessels slightly larger than a patrol boat which the Navy decided to build 12 of. A construction contract was signed in 2018 and we still don’t have an operational vessel available to Navy use.

That’s correct; in the time it took for World War II to start and then end, we haven’t been able to build and commission one patrol vessel into the Navy.

The Government has cut the build number in half to 6.

The real problem left unsolved

Defence Minister Richard Marles left the Naval shipbuilding capability issue unsolved today; the “always choose something special and untested” problem.

He should have been looking through the track record of failure, of massive cost blow-outs, protracted delay and abrupt cancellations, to find a real fix necessary to solve the Navy’s (and Army and Air Force’s) woes.

Defence has consistently failed to manage project risk, taxpayers have been picking up the tab on every occasion.

Dumb Ways to Buy: Defence “shambles” unveiled – former submariner and senator Rex Patrick

This problem starts with our Senior military officers, who were no doubt great warfighters in their junior ADF years, having little project management experience. They’re the ones making high-risk purchase recommendations to Cabinet ministers – who have zero project management experience.

In choosing paper capabilities, Defence exposes its programs and taxpayers to budget blowouts that ultimately mean there’s less money to spend on other much-needed Defence capabilities and schedule blowouts that leave our service men and women without modern capabilities.

Repeated failures

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the cancelled Multiple-Role Helicopter program ($3.5B wasted), the cancelled Sky Guardian medium altitude long endurance attack drone program ($1.3B), the cancelled Army’s Battle Management system ($760M), the failed Spartan battlefield airlift aircraft ($900M), the failed Tiger helicopter program ($1.8B wasted) and the cancelled Attack Class submarine program ($3B).

Two weeks ago, the Auditor-General reported to the Parliament that, across 20 major Defence projects, the “total schedule slippage was 453 months (23%) when compared to initial project planning”.

There hasn’t been any accountability for past procurement failures or reform to ensure better performance in the future.

So, we need to put away the undue excitement of some from today’s announcement. We need to appreciate that today’s announcement will see the same incompetent organisations that consistently deliver failure put in charge of the announced programs.

The real change that’s needed from today moving forward is some real constraint on our Defence bureaucrats from doing anything remotely risky.

Our future ships need to be proven designs, built in Australia, and later enhanced by local industry to improve a working baseline design.

Big announcements and press conferences don’t deliver the goods. Effective project management by leaders and teams with deep expertise and experience do. That’s what Defence needs to build if they are to do better in the future.

 

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Last November, at the time the Coalition were furiously bashing ‘Airbus Albo’ for his penchant for overseas travel, Peter Dutton paid a low-key visit to India. Rex Patrick and Philip Dorling take a look at the Opposition Leader’s trip, which included a private dinner with an Indian billionaire with coal interests in Australia.

DFAT and LOTO

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) routinely use the acronym LOTO to refer to the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton.

In late October last year, Australia’s High Commission in India was scrambling to facilitate an imminent visit by LOTO to New Delhi.  DFAT emails released under FOI show that the Department and the High Commission were first informed of Dutton’s prospective travel on 20 October, but it wasn’t until 23 October that Dutton’s office confirmed LOTO would be arriving in the evening of 31 October for a four day visit.

This gave the High Commission just five working days to sort out accommodation, logistics and most challenging, appointments with Indian Government ministers and officials.

Curiously Dutton’s office didn’t offer much, if any, guidance and by 26 October High Commissioner Philip Green found it necessary to email Dutton’s team to personally offer “support in engaging with the Ministry of External Affairs for any meetings you are seeking with Government of India officials or representatives”. 

With just a few days left before Dutton’s departure, LOTO’s office accepted the offer of assistance and the High Commissioner was fortunately able to secure a short-notice appointment with India’s External Affairs Minister, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. The High Commission successfully also made another appointment for Dutton but the identity of that senior Indian official has been redacted from DFAT’s FOI release on grounds of diplomatic sensitivity. More about that later.

It’s also clear from the released DFAT records that these meetings weren’t LOTO’s top priority. In fact, much of Dutton’s program had already been organised outside of DFAT because his trip was much more about domestic Australian politics than international relations.

Currying favours

In many respects Peter Dutton’s decision to make visit to India was entirely unexceptional.

Although long neglected in Australian foreign policy, diplomatic, economic and strategic ties between Australia and India have grown apace over the past decade and a half as both countries have identified new trade opportunities and shared a growing concern about China’s geo-strategic rise.

In 2020 the bilateral relationship was elevated by agreement to what was proclaimed to be a “Common Strategic Partnership”. As Defence Minister Dutton participated in the inaugural India-Australia ministerial dialogue in September 2021 and in April 2022, shortly before Australia’s federal election, a bilateral economic cooperation and trade agreement was signed in April 2022.

Behind the diplomatic, strategic and economic relationships, migration from India has produced a rapid expansion in Australia’s Indian community with some 800,000 Australians having Indian heritage.

Indian Australians now account for nearly 3 per cent of the total population and comprise the second largest immigrant community in Australia. The influx of Indian migrants is having a significant cultural impact with Hinduism our countries fastest growing religion and Punjabi the fastest growing language.

Australia’s Indian communities have also emerged as a major factor on the political landscape.

Chefs and Indians

Prior to the 2022 federal election, both the Coalition and Labor furiously courted Indian Australian voters who are significantly concentrated in electorates in the outer west and south west of Sydney and the northern and north-western suburbs of Melbourne. Both sides made lavish promises of government grants for community projects and facilities. 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison tweeted selfies of himself cooking Indian flavoured curries while Anthony Albanese visited temples and applauded the contributions of Indian Australians to the nation.

Established political wisdom was that the Liberal Party had the edge in winning support from the Indian community, but surveys prior to the election strongly suggested that was mistaken with four out of ten Indian Australians signalling they intended to vote for Labor while about 25 per cent favoured the Coalition. The Greens placed third with ten per cent of the community’s vote.

After the poll, Labor Prime Minister Albanese continued his political engagement with his effusive embrace of visiting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2023. 

For the defeated Liberal’s become a question of catch up politics, seeking to rebuild support in the Indian community as part of Dutton’s strategy to win outer suburban electorates in Sydney and Melbourne as the path to make gains and perhaps regain power at the next election.

The IASA and the Liberals

It’s in this context that LOTO Dutton arrived in New Delhi on the evening of 31 October 2023 accompanied, not by Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham or Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie, but by the Shadow Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Jason Wood, the opposition’s point man for relations with Australia’s immigrant communities.

Filling out Dutton’s official party were three staffers from Dutton’s and Wood’s offices and no less than four Australian Federal Police close-protection officers, a security legacy from Dutton’s time as Minister for Home Affairs.

But that wasn’t all of Dutton’s delegation because his visit and itinerary had in fact been very largely orchestrated not by DFAT and the High Commission but by the Chairman of the India Australia Strategic Alliance (IASA), Dr Javinder Singh Virk, a long time Liberal Party member, friend of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and supporter of numerous Liberal Party parliamentarians.

An influential and respected figure within Indian business and community organisations, Virk’s Liberal Party affiliation is amply demonstrated on his social media postings.

Joint Peacocks

In his media release on his visit to India, Dutton acknowledged the connection with the IASA, but omitted to say that he was accompanied by Virk and indeed by a delegation of some twenty Indian Australian business figures and local government politicians including Liberal Party, Blacktown Councillor Livingston Chettipally who gifted the Opposition Leader an ornamental peacock sculpture. (Jason Wood got a peacock as well.)

In an overlooked parliamentary speech close to the end of last year, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister Patrick Gorman was scathing of the delegation, claiming Dutton was accompanied to New Delhi by “an unlicensed real estate agent, a disgraced Liberal candidate, unregistered migration agents … property developers, people who’d had restrictions placed on them by ASQA [Australian Skills Quality Authority] and even those who were the subject of an Age investigation.”

That’s a highly partisan portrayal. However, aside from the quality or otherwise of Dutton’s delegation, it’s clear from DFAT’s emails and coverage of the visit in the Indian press that Opposition Leader’s official government meetings was squeezed into a program largely geared towards photo opportunities and networking events directed towards building Liberal Party ties with the Australian-Indian business community, and generating favourable publicity directed at the Indian community back in Australia.

And in the program curated by Dr Virk one name stands out.

Naveen Jindal the coal baron

Most Australians won’t know the name Naveen Jindal, but he’s a big deal in India and has significant Australian connections.

Jindal is an Indian billionaire industrialist, the chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL), a leading steel producer with worldwide coal and power interests including a 60.38% stake in Wollongong Resources which operates the Russell Vale and Wongawilli Collieries.

Jindal has long mixed business and politics. A decade ago Jindal was seen as one of India’s brightest younger entrepreneurs and a rising star within the Congress Party. He was elected to India’s Federal Parliament, the Lok Sahba, in 2004 and re-elected in 2009.

In 2012 Jindal and Linfox chairman Lindsay Fox were the inaugural co-chairs of the Australia-India CEO Forum, a bilateral government supported industry group to facilitate Australia-India business cooperation and trade.

Alongside his business and political ambitions, Jindal built his standing as a philanthropist, establishing the O.P. Jindal Global private university (named in honour of Naveen’s industrialist father).

Untidy allegations

In 2013, however, his political and personal fortunes were dealt a severe blow when Indian prosecutors with offences charged him with criminal misconduct, conspiracy and cheating for allegedly paying bribes to government officials to buy coal mining blocks at below-market prices.

As part of a wider “Coalgate” scandal that embroiled the Congress Government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation alleged that a former junior minister Dasari Narayan Rao received massive bribes from JSPL to influence coal block sales.

Jindal has strenuously denied the charges.

After protracted legal delays and complications including the disappearance of government files relating to coal allocations and the untimely death of former minister Rao, the case is still before a Delhi court a decade later.

Coal expansion

However, Naveen Jindal’s legal troubles haven’t held back his conglomerate’s performance and expansion.

JSPL shares of Jindal Steel and Power hit a record at the start of this month after the company reported a 272 percent rise in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 2023. JSPL stock has gained nearly 4 per cent since the beginning of this year and risen 32 per cent in the past year.

Last October the company broke ground for a new $US1 billion coal mine and power plant project in Botswana. This month JSPL offered a lazy $US1.7 billion for a distressed coal-fired power plant in eastern India.

In this context, JSPL’s recent failure to secure environmental approval for a $US2 billion iron ore mine in South Africa and the closure on safety grounds of the Russell Vale Colliery near Wollongong are relatively minor glitches in the company’s global fortunes.

At the time of writing, with permission from the Delhi court and a direction “not to tamper with any evidence or try to influence any witness” in his criminal trial, Jindal is on an overseas trip that includes travel to the United States, United Kingdom, Italy and Spain.

Coal baron dinner date 

This was the person who was at the top of Peter Dutton’s list to visit in New Delhi.

Indeed, centrepieces of LOTO’s itinerary were a dinner on 1 November at Jindal’s palatial 3.5 acre residence at 5 Man Singh Road in central New Delhi, and a speech by Dutton on 3 November to the India-Australia Studies Centre at Jindal’s O.P Jindal Global University.

Curiously, however, Dutton had made no mention of Naveen Jindal in the media release that announced his trip to India and although the text of his speech was distributed to the Indian media, it wasn’t publicised to the Australian press and was only being posted on his website sometime after his return to Australia.

Dutton wasn’t keen to publicise many details of his trip to India and he wasn’t interested in drawing attention to Naveen Jindal.  

Foreign Affairs

In his speech at O.P. Jindal Global University, Dutton presented a stark view of international affairs with the world divided in conflict between democracies such as Australia and India and authoritarian states such as Russia and others – China was not explicitly named.

“This is not a time for appeasement”, Dutton declared with a Churchillian overtone.

“Whenever we witnessed authoritarian coercion and aggression, it is vital that nations large and small link together to unequivocally condemn such behaviour.  Australia and India have collaborated with Japan and the United States, as part of the QUAD, which is an emphatic statement of our desire for peace in the region.”

Dutton proclaimed himself in favour of greatly increased defence cooperation between Australia and India, was hopeful for increased uranium Australian sales and for India’s nuclear power sector to set an example for similar development in Australia under a Coalition Government.    

It’s not known what India’s External Affairs Minister made of the Australian Opposition Leader.

Minister Jaishankar is a veteran diplomat of great subtly and sophistication and Dutton’s Manichean world view as expressed in his speech showed little understanding of the complexity of India’s strategic outlook, or the ambiguity of India’s foreign policy towards Russia – after all, for all Dutton’s talk about democratic solidarity, it’s Indian oil refineries that are providing Russia’s oil exports with a large backdoor to bypass Western economic embargoes and sanctions.

Hardeep Singh Nijjar murder

DFAT won’t reveal Dutton’s other high level, foreign policy related appointment but it was most likely Prime Minister Modi’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Kumar Doval.

We know this because the Opposition Leader’s parliamentary register of interests includes disclosure of the gift of an “ornamental sceptre from Ajit Doval”.

Doval is the kingpin of India’s intelligence community, having previously served as Director of India’s internal security agency, the Intelligence Bureau after serving for a decade of its operational wing. Doval’s career has very largely revolved around dealing ruthlessly with Kashmiri and Sikh separatists as well as Pakistani espionage.

Dutton’s meeting with Doval, and with External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, could have provided opportunity to raise the issue of alleged Indian Government involvement in the assassination in Canada of the Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar in September 2023.

Nijjar’s murder was widely seen as a disturbing indication of the increasingly authoritarian tendances of Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP Government.

Canada expelled a top Indian diplomat, saying there was evidence the Indian Government was behind the murder of a Canadian citizen.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Australian Government was “deeply concerned” by allegations that the Indian Government had orchestrated the murder and revealed those concerns had been raised at “senior levels”.  If anyone knows the inside story it would be National Security Adviser Doval.

Shyness from Dutton

However, Dutton’s office did not respond to questions from MWM about whether he raised the matter in his meetings with Doval or Jaishankar.  

Nor has LOTO been at all forthcoming about his meeting Naveen Jindal. It’s clear from his itinerary that this exclusive dinner on 1 November was a highpoint of his visit to New Delhi. 

Speaking at Jindal’s private university two days later, he paid tribute to Jindal’s entrepreneur father and heaped praise on Naveen, declaring him to be “a world renowned businessman, philanthropist and patriot in his own right.”

Yet Dutton remains deeply reticent about their encounter. It wasn’t in his media release and the hospitality he received at Jindal’s New Delhi residence isn’t recorded in his parliamentary declaration of interests — even though he took care to record various minor gifts including cufflinks and scarves from the India Australia Strategic Alliance and books and pictures from Delhi’s Akshardham Temple.

Dutton did not respond to MWM’s questions about the purpose of his meeting with Naveen Jindal or whether, apart from dinner, he had received any gifts or benefits from the billionaire.

Politics, not diplomacy  

Foreign policy doesn’t stop in Opposition.

Out of government MPs and especially Opposition leaders and shadow ministers need to travel overseas in order to gain international insights and prepare for government in the future. 

Australian embassies and high commission’s often find visits by Opposition parliamentarians advantageous because, given time to work up a good program, they provide useful opportunities to open doors and engage senior political figures and officials.

Aside from meeting Jaishankar and most likely Doval, Dutton met the Minister of Road Transport Nitin Gadkari and prominent government economist and planner Shri Suman Bery but those meetings were not facilitated by the High Commission.  

Dutton’s office did not response to questions from MWM about what meetings the High Commissioner or High Commission staff attended; however, DFAT’s highly abbreviated reporting cable suggests that the benefit to Australian diplomacy was not particularly significant.

For Dutton, however, his recent trip to New Delhi suggests he sees international engagement largely as an extension of domestic political strategy. It’s about the overseas side of political networking, building links with important communities and business interests to support the next federal election campaign.

In the case of New Delhi, it was about photo opportunities and engaging one of Indian’s wealthiest businessmen, a philanthropist, a political player and a figure tarnished by allegations of bribery and corruption.

Dutton’s office did not respond to questions about the purpose of his meeting with Naveen Jindal, but having flown 20,000 kilometres to New Delhi and back it’s unlikely LOTO just went for a social chit chat.   

Vision 2024: aim to “make Australia a better quarry” … and a CO2 dump

This post was originally published on Michael West.

The victim of the Sydney bomb threat was doxxed by Israel government supporters, and the investigation was handed to a junior constable at the local police station who went on leave, rather than Counter-Terrorism police. With anti-Zionism and Islamophobia on the rise, Farah Abdurahman reports on how authorities are handling the tensions.

A device planted on the hood of a car in the Eastern Sydney suburb of Botany was not “a fake bomb” as mainstream media and politicians have stated.

The victim of the terror-related incident, Theo, said the investigating officer confirmed the item was an improvised explosive device without the ability to detonate remotely.

Theo – who prefers his full name be protected for safety reasons – has criticised inaction by officers at the South Sydney Local Area Command who downplayed the incident, and after six-weeks failed to refer the matter to the Counter-Terrorism Squad.

He said the investigation has seemingly stalled while the junior constable in charge recovered from Covid, ahead of taking three-weeks of planned leave. 

Michael West Media reached out to the NSW Police for comment but received only a pre-drafted holding statement stating officers were called out on January 5 following “reports of a suspicious item”.

“Officers from the Rescue and Bomb Squad attended and deemed the item safe,” the NSW Police spokesperson said.

However Theo said it took various investigating teams more than three-hours to “deem the item safe”. 

“An exclusion zone was set up, our home was a crime scene; there were police, a bomb squad, a bomb disarming robot, and forensic teams on site. That statement by police is entirely dismissive of the incident and the police resources dedicated to the call out,” Theo said.

Doxing and the Z600

Theo said he fed entire dossiers of information to the police in early January including how he was doxed on the “Jews of Sydney” Facebook page, which published his home address back in December, and included hateful and racist comments with incitement to violence.

“The last contact I had with Police was back on January 28 and that was just an email from the junior constable to say he had Covid, and he’s headed off on leave. There was no mention as to who would be managing the case in his absence,” Theo said.

“The woman who doxed me did so under her own name, she has not been questioned by police regarding publishing my home address on the internet. 

“I also provided the police with a suspect and supporting evidence and he too has not been questioned.”

This week a leaked transcript from a clandestine social media group chat involving 600 Zionist creatives revealed large-scale doxing efforts and co-ordinated attacks on Palestinians and their allies.

The activist collectives who published the leaked chat said in a statement published to Four AM that the transcript was shared in the public’s interest.

The statement goes on to discuss how the leaked group chat provided critical insight into how Zionists organised and operated in the progressive arts, academic and media spaces, demonstrating coordinated efforts to silence criticism of Israel.

“Many of us were shocked and disturbed by the contents of the transcript as we read the tactics discussed to target and harm the livelihood and reputation of good and just people, some for simply being Palestinian, and almost all for calling for an end to the genocide against the people of Gaza,” the collective said.

“To frame the sharing of this information as antisemitic or ‘doxing’ is an attempt to distract and deflect from the bigoted rhetoric and organised aggression enacted by many in the Zionist group chat against activists, artists, academics and anyone who speaks up for Palestine.

The investigation

Theo said police were doing their utmost to not investigate the matter as a violent crime, which meant he and his family were excluded from receiving victim support or adequate protection.

“I have already lost more than a month of work from trying to do the police’s job and simultaneously deal with my own trauma and support my family,” Theo said.

“I have less than a month left of pushing this before the rent is at risk and I am financially stricken.”

Theo, a fourth generation white Australian, said he has no doubt in his mind that he was targeted because “people” thought he was Palestinian.

“I’m just a standard guy who looks like a bogan. But because I chose to oppose genocide and fly the Palestinian flag I was targeted. I know from the comments on social media under the doxing that they thought I was Arab or Muslim,” he said.

 

 

Doxxed

“I thought I was pretty aware of institutional racism, but it’s been heartbreaking to get even a small taste of what it’s like to not be afforded the white privilege I normally take for granted.

“This is systemic failure. The willingness of politicians and law enforcement to accept injustice, to issue human and civil rights selectively, to offer their protection selectively, it’s the same mechanism being used to defund UNWRA and provide military aid to Israel. 

“There is a structural, endemic failure to protect and treat equally any citizens perceived to be the wrong kind of minority. Political support of Palestine has grouped me and my family within this minority group despite our “whiteness.”

Former cop turned Barrister Mahmud Hawila, who is representing Theo, said his client was exploring his legal options and considering filing a complaint with the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission.

“This is one of the clearest examples of a terror related incident I have seen and the fact that the Counter-Terror Squad have not taken it on is a clear example of a failure to follow what is standard procedure in investigating these matters,” Mr Hawila said.

“Every member of the public is entitled to the same service from NSW Police, notwithstanding how they look, how they pray, or what flag is hanging outside their home. 

“If this bomb was placed in front of a house displaying the Israeli flag, I have no doubt in my mind that this would have been referred to the counter terrorism unit immediately for investigation.” 

Strategically stalled investigations?

It took more than 100-days for police to announce that footage of hate chants at the Sydney Opera House had been doctored and were fake.

In Victoria, it also took more than 100-days for arrests to be made in relation to an attack on a Melbourne fast-food restaurant – Burgertory.

While Police say the attack on the burger house was arson, Burgertory owner Hasheam Tayeh took to social media to maintain the firebombing was a hate crime, that followed weeks of targeted discrimination and assault on his staff and premises.

Theo believes high level political interference is at play to undermine the seriousness of the bomb threat, amid a pattern of burying cases against Palestine supporters through prolonged investigations and delaying charges and arrests.

Premier Minns’ weak response

“[NSW Premier] Chris Minns was quick to show his solidarity with Jewish communities after October 7. He wasted no time condemning what we now know were false allegations of hate chants at the Opera house, and he raced to do a photo op at a Jewish restaurant in Sydney after claims of a hate crime,” Theo said.

“I had someone plant a bomb on my car, right outside my home where I live with my family, and yet Minns has not so much as acknowledged it. No phone call, no condemnation, no public address.”

Theo said a note left with the Improvised Explosive Device made explicit demands that he remove the flag and any message boards expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people or expect another bomb. 

At an unrelated press conference around five days after the bomb incident, Premier Minns was asked to comment on the matter. In his response, the Premier referred to the item as a “fake bomb.”

“Minns reference to this incident as just a fake bomb and not a targeted political attack; intentionally, actively and knowingly provides political and legal protection for the bomber and demonstrates complicity at a state government level,” Theo said.

“Politicians who publicly disregard and vilify certain groups, while showing clear bias, create a laissez-faire environment of permissive impunity for targeting not just brown people, not just Muslims, but anyone who opposes genocide.

“If this continues not to be taken seriously and no one is brought to justice, I will hold the police responsible, I will hold politicians responsible and I will hold the broader action of the powers that be – who have drawn a wilful curtain of silence and ignorance around this – even more responsible than the bomber.”

After prompting by MWM, the NSW Police advised the case has been handed over to detectives at the South Sydney Local Area Command. 

The matter has still not been referred to the Counter-Terrorism Squad.

As the investigation continues, anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

---

Editor’s Note: MWM understands mainstream media have been made aware of the police response to the bomb threat against Theo but have chosen not to publish the story.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

As a war breaks out between the Defence Minister’s Office and his Department, and as the Auditor-General hands down another scathing annual Defence Major Projects Report, Rex Patrick examines the Future Frigate Farce and explains why Richard Marles and the Defence Diarchy has to go.

A shambles in Defence leadership

On Tuesday we saw media reports that the Future Frigate Program will likely be reduced from nine ships to three. 

On Wednesday Senator Lambie stood up in the Senate chamber and sum up the Defence Department as a “very, very expensive basket case”.

Here’s @JacquiLambie in the Senate this morning discussing the “very very expensive basket case” that is @DefenceAust procurement. Calling it how it is. #auspol pic.twitter.com/AWsdGE8uPZ

— Rex Patrick (@MrRexPatrick) February 7, 2024

On Thursday there were more reports in the media, this time triggered by the blame game that’s erupted between Defence Minister Richard Marles’ office and the most senior officers of the Defence Force and his department. 

Competitive leaking has surged on both sides of Lake Burley Griffin, the likes we haven’t seen since Joel Fitzgibbon lost his job as Defence Minister back in 2009.

On Friday, the Auditor-General release his annual report into the 20 current major Defence projects revealing, “The total approved budget for the 20 Major Projects has increased by $22.8 billion (39%) since initial Second Pass Approval by government” and the “total schedule slippage was 453 months (23%) when compared to initial project planning”.

Something has to happen with the dysfunctional Defence leadership, and what’s required is not what happened on Australia Day with the award of the Order of Australia to the Secretary of Defence, Greg Moriarty, on Australia Day. For the past six years he’s presided, with a bloated salary of almost a million dollars per annum, over what can only be described a shambles. Talk about devaluing the honours system.

I’ll come back to what needs to happen.

Frigate trim

It’s an old joke from the BBC TV series “Yes Minister” that the ship of state is the only ship to leak from the top.  

It’s nowhere truer that in our Defence Department.  

This week another leak coming from inside Defence indicated that the Government may take the troubled nine ship future frigate program and chop it down to just three ships.

That could only be described as just plain stupid.

Most of the cost of designing and producing a new class ship comes with the first ship. Most of the cost of fixing problems with a new class of ship comes with the first second and third ship. It makes no sense at all to limit an order to three ships. 

If Defence think that the future frigate ship design is good enough to buy three to put our sailors in and send it in harm’s way, then they should continue with the nine build program so that they can bring the unit cost down over a large build.

If Defence thinks the ship is a dud, it should cut our losses now and move to an off-the-shelf design, built here in Australia starting later this year.

Of course, such a decision would involve admitting to another massively embarrassing failure.  

But it looks like dumb and dumber are again in charge.

Dumb Ways to Buy: Defence “shambles” unveiled – former submariner and senator Rex Patrick

 

Selection incompetence

It’s worth looking into the Future Frigate program.

When the program first became a topic of discussion inside Defence way back in 2014 (yes, to go from an initial thought to still having no future frigates at all has taken Defence the length of World War I and World War II and then some) the plan was to go with an off-the-shelf design – that is, a design that was already at sea working.

They set a budget at an eye watering $30 billion dollars.

When the tender came out in 2016 the position of the Department was clear – they wanted a military-off-the shelf design with minimal change.

Subsequent investigations by the Auditor-General and Senate have revealed that Defence departed from that tender requirement without any process. They selected a design, BAE’s Type 26 frigate, that was not off-the-shelf and involved significant engineering, weaponry and other technological changes (into what is now referred to as the Hunter Class).

We now know from an Auditor-General audit and formally Secret – Australian Eyes Only independent review, that the down selection process was fundamentally flawed. All the focus was on capability – paper capability as opposed to fielded capability – and, contrary to law, there was no value for money assessment.

Documents recording the decision making processes of senior defence leadership do not exist. Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty AO can’t explain any of this.

At down selection the program’s cost had risen to $45 billion – a fifteen thousand million dollar increase – and the program is now more than 18 months behind schedule. Even with a $45 billon budget, the Auditor-General has found a further bureaucratic shambles and run-away costs.

Overweight and other problems

One of the big problems with the Hunter Class is weight. It went from around 8,800 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes.

Significantly extra weight means the propulsion system can no longer achieve the planned top speed, and that for any given speed more strain will be put on the propulsion system, lowering the ships range and meaning that the ship is nosier. That’s not a good thing for an anti-submarine frigate.

The new Auditor-General’s report details the ongoing concern, “There is a risk that [the Hunter Class Frigate] design may exceed the naval architecture limits on weight and stability at the completion of the [design and productisation] scope, which may limit or provide in-service growth margins that substantially limit future capabilities.

There are a range of other technical problems that were discussed in the Senate in February 2022 after an internal Defence report was leaked to the late Senator Kimberly Kitching.

So far the project has spent $2.6 billion dollars and we haven’t started building a ship yet and by the time Defence gets a ship in the water, if one bravely assumes there will be no further delays, it will be after four World War timeframes.

While the taxpayer is now suffering, and national security has been harmed, the person who was instrumental in pushing the BAE option, Tim Barrett, has left his job as the Chief of Navy and taken up work as a paid advisor to BAE.

Groundhog Day – including for AUKUS

So, Defence contracted BAE to build a frigate that was not off-the-shelf. The first was to be built in the United Kingdom and the second was to be built in Australia.

With all that has happened, have we not learned? Apparently not, our Defence leadership are true masters of the flat learning curve.  

The five AUKUS SSN submarines Defence proposes to acquire from the UK are not even paper boats. The first will be built in the UK and the second will be built in Australia. The only difference is, with a budget of $368 billion, the outcome will be so much worse.

If Defence looked at the future Frigate program honestly, they’d cancel the AUKUS subs. But self-reflection and honesty are rare characteristics among our bloated Defence top brass.  

Instead, they’ve doubled their bets again and again, each time hoping they have something that’s too big to fail, or at least that they’ll have moved to a cushy consultancy before the proverbial hits the fan.  

No doubt some of our admirals, generals, air marshals and top Defence bureaucrats believe that AUKUS is too big to fail.  

But rest assured in the real world of military strategy, conflict and international relations, failure can come fast and hard.  

Services no longer required

Over and over Defence is failing the public when it comes to procurement.

The diarchy at the top of Defence needs to go, and so does the uninspiring Defence Minister. Services no longer required, gentleman!

We the need to bring project management discipline into procurement decision making. Right now, we have admirals, air marshals and generals with little project management experience making recommendations on procurement to cabinet ministers who have no project management experience.

The Defence Department often looks back to the First World War as the source of Australia’s military traditions.  

But it’s not the Diggers of ANZAC that our Defence elite today resemble.

They have much more in common with the medaled fools of the creaking Austro-Hungarian Empire; incompetent marshals and generals, commanders who preened themselves in peace before leading to catastrophe a military force bereft of adequate munitions, equipment and logistics.

Without radial reform, our current Defence leadership will at best cost us dearly in procurement ineptitude and financial waste.  They may well cost us much more than that.  

Drastic change is needed, for the sake of servicemen and women who are being asked to defend us with aged and obsolete capabilities, and for the sake of our national security.

The scam within a scam. US, UK officials are flying high on the AUKUS teat.

This post was originally published on Michael West.

Lobbying is the scourge of democracy. Independent Senator David Pocock and MP Monique Ryan are pushing legislative reform to rein in the power of money in politics. Richard Barnes reports.

Lobbying is the scourge of the Australian body politic. Described by the eminent retired public servant and publisher John Menadue as “pervasive and insidious” and here at Michael West Media as a toxic and powerful influence over democracy, it is now coming under political purview via an inquiry by the Senate into lobbyist access to Parliament House. 

So, get your submissions in quick smart to the Senate Finance and Public Administration Reference Committee. It doesn’t have to be long. Today is the last day.

There are over 700 registered “third party lobbyists” whose orange passes allow them unfettered access to the parliamentary buildings in Canberra. (And one can’t help but wonder whether it is with a feeling of pride that, when asked what they do for a job, these people reply,

I wield undue influence on the nation’s decision-makers to get outcomes favourable to those who engage me

But there are many more people who, while they are very much lobbyists, are not registered as such: “in house” lobbyists – people employed within an organisation purely to undertake that role; and people who, by virtue of their senior positions within industry bodies, are able to act as “ex officio lobbyists”: executives of businesses, industry groups, NGOs, not-for-profits, charities, think tanks, research centres, religious organisations, trade unions and other bodies – all of whom have the opportunity to give advice to government which is rarely disinterested but which is not officially defined as “lobbying”.

The Big 4 – PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG – are in this top echelon of lobbyists; so pervasive and so powerfully connected at every level of government that they neither disclose nor deem themselves to be lobbyists. It is in the way of the eminent surgeon who no longer calls themself Doctor, but simply Mr.

Two major parties too close

For obvious reasons, there has been little willingness on the part of Labor and Coalition politicians to tackle the lobbying problem.

Now, however, thanks to Independent Senator David Pocock and the Teal Dr Monique Ryan, there is some action. Last year, Dr Ryan introduced to the House of Reps a private member’s bill, the Lobbying (Improving Government Honesty and Trust) Bill 2023, known as the “Clean up Politics Act”:

At the same time, Senator David Pocock has established a Senate inquiry into access to Australian Parliament House by lobbyists and the adequacy of current transparency arrangements relating to the lobbyist register, to be run through the Financial and Public Administration References Committee:

Some of us would go further than proposed by Senator Pocock and Dr Ryan, by simply abandoning the orange pass system and requiring all access to politicians to be by publicly diarised appointments only. Nonetheless, their proposals, if adopted, would represent a powerful weakening of the power of lobbyists and a strengthening of our democratic decision-making processes.

The Terms

The Senate inquiry’s terms of reference are in particular, around the (currently hopelessly inadequate) lobbyist register:

• transparency arrangements;
• the current sponsored pass system for lobbyists to access Australian Parliament House with particular regard to transparency and publication of lobbyists who are pass holders and their sponsors;
• publicly accessible information of Australian Parliament House pass holders who are lobbyists and their sponsors.

Submissions to the inquiry close tomorrow, Friday, 9th February. Here is the link to the Senate submissions website:

It is not too late to have your say. 

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