$1bn Gap in Australian Military Budget

[bullpup-aust]

AUSTRALIA'S defence budget faces unsustainable pressures over the next decade and will need spending increases of at least $1 billion a year if the defence force is to be properly equipped to meet future security challenges, warns a major report to be released this week.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16867762%255E31477,00.html

(Sorry if this has been posted already. I saw this and thought I'd relay to these boards immediately. Oh, and I realise I spelt 'budget' wrong. It's 7am and I haven't slept!)

 

[Cootamundra]

Re: $1bn Gap in Australian Military Buget

Seems like exactly the kind of report we needed. Hopefully we can see a real funding increase over the next few years. From what I can gather we can CERTAINLY afford it what with a little over 13 bill budget surplus this financial year. Perhaps someone could convince Peter (I wannabe PM) Costello to part with a cool 1 bill right now which could be put into trust earning some nice interest until the Defence Chiefs and DefMin Hill had the first invoice for the F-35. Which ever way we look at it, we have several costly programmes coming on stream and $$$$'s will be needed.

 

[Aussie Digger]

Re: $1bn Gap in Australian Military Buget

I agree that more money is urgently acquired for the ADF, however just because a defence think-tank states publicly that it's needed, doesn't mean it will happen.

The Australian Defence Association has been calling for such an increase for 15 odd years and estimates that the ADF has missed out on about $75 Billion in funding due to budget cuts since 1990. The fact is that there is not a real military threat to Australia and thus defence spending will not attract the votes needed to keep (or get) politicians into power.

 

[pepsi]

Re: $1bn Gap in Australian Military Buget

There has been a reply from the Government, Alexander Downer has called this shortfall 'nonsense'

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16874608-29277,00.html

It seems that this government make decisions on an economic scale before anything else, i think the F-35 decision was a good example of that, so its probably a bit much to expect them to suddenly start giving more money to the ADF unless its going to benefit them or if it would help them in an election

Its so frustrating, and im not even in the defence force, i hate to think how some people who are in the ADF feel about this whole thing

 

[bullpup-aust]

You would think that these days, with the 'war on terrorism', military spending would be of uptmost importance. Obviouly not. Could this mean, as a lot of us have suspected all along, that this war on terror is merely propogandous?

Oh, and thanks to whomever fixed my spelling mistake

 

[Snayke]

Uh, I don't think the military has much to do with the war on terror except the occasional raiding which they are fine. It's more the intelligence community's concern.

 

[bullpup-aust]

True. I guess I'm thinking 'conventional' war, whereas this one certainly isn't (unless the US decides to make it so, ala Afghanistan and Iraq).