Subjects: Defence
E&OE..................
I present to the House the Government's White Paper on defence policy, "Defence 2000 - Our Future Defence Force".
This White Paper represents the most comprehensive reappraisal of Australian defence capability for decades.
It announces major increases, over a long time scale, in defence funding. And it complements the Governments strategic view of the circumstances in which Australia is now placed in our region and beyond.
At the outset, I acknowledge the Government's debt to the Minister for Defence, the Hon John Moore MP, for his tireless commitment to both policy and management reform within the defence area.
As a people, Australians have never taken their freedom for granted. As an independent and self-reliant nation, we've accepted the unique demands placed upon us as the privileged occupants of an island continent.We've accepted responsibility for defending ourselves, our homes, our way of life and, when called upon, to defend the rights of others.
Today's White Paper ensures we can continue to do so. The Government's purpose is to provide Australia with the Defence capability it will need over the first few decades of this new century.
We are grateful for the role played by many Australians during the process of preparing the White Paper. Under the leadership of Andrew Peacock, former Minister for Foreign Affairs and Ambassador to the United States, we undertook the most extensive public consultation on defence issues in Australia's history.
His report, published a few weeks ago, shows that a strong national consensus on defence issues exists throughout the country. The views gathered were extremely useful in making our decisions on Australia's future defence force needs and I would like to personally thank all those who took part in this important consultation process.
It must be said, we have not undertaken this defence review because we face an urgent strategic crisis. There are of course some important challenges, yet Australia remains a secure country.
In peaceful times it is sometimes easy to forget how essential a strong military capability is. However, as we were all reminded last year, there are times when the whole country looks to our service men and women to do extraordinary things under exceptional circumstances.
That does not happen by itself. We recognise a responsibility to recruit and retain the best people possible, to equip and train them to world standards and to ensure that all is done so that they may successfully face whatever tasks lie ahead.
But all of that costs a great deal. Defence is one of our most expensive national undertakings. We have an equal responsibility to ensure that Government funds are spent wisely.
Over the past few years, the Government has given high priority to reforming the Defence organisation and we have regarded this as an essential precondition for serious consideration of our long-term defence and funding needs.
Important reforms have begun. Management practice has improved, waste and inefficiency cut, and responsibility and accountability tightened. Great credit is due to the Minister for Defence, and also to his predecessor, Ian McLachlan.
The Government has ensured that the Defence Force was able to meet the demands placed upon it. Defence alone was exempted from the budget cuts necessary in our first years in Government, and we have maintained defence spending in real terms ever since.
Early last year we took what proved to be a prudent and far-sighted decision to increase the readiness of our land forces, so that we were ready to meet the crisis in East Timor when it arose. And we have provided substantial additional funding to support our East Timor commitments.
But, at the same time, the Government has been determined to step back from the day-to-day demands and review the basics of our strategic policy. For the past twelve years Australia's defence funding has been flat in real terms, and indeed fell slightly in the early 1990's. Over the same period, costs have increased in real terms in many areas of the defence budget.
The result has been a long-term squeeze on our capabilities, and on the people in uniform. The Government became concerned that our defence budget was no longer adequate to sustain the existing set of capabilities. Without action, defence spending as a percentage of GDP would have continued to decline. So we have undertaken a comprehensive review of all aspects of our strategic policy, force structure, and funding needs.
Our basic objective was to provide a stable and sustainable basis for our defence policy by aligning our strategic objectives, our capability requirements, and our defence spending. That is the essence of this White Paper.
We have taken a long-term view of all these issues. Our key defence decisions are not just about what we need this year or the next: the reality of a modern combat capability highly dependent on advanced technology is the need to plan for the next decade, and even the decade after that.
We started by acknowledging the many positive trends in our strategic environment. Economic growth and regional integration augur well for the future security of the Asia-Pacific. But they cannot be taken for granted. The relationships between the region's major powers will be critical for the stability of our entire region, and they pose challenges as well as providing opportunities in the years ahead. Continued US engagement in the Asia-Pacific will be the single most important factor in maintaining security in the region over that period.
Closer to home, several of our most important neighbours are confronting new and difficult circumstances. Indonesia's political transition and economic situation obviously pose major challenges to its Government. Australia's commitment to supporting Indonesia's stability and territorial integrity remains steadfast. PNG and many of the island states of the Southwest Pacific likewise face a range of domestic challenges.
The White paper reaffirms that we take a total view of security that goes beyond military and defence issues. It builds on the assessments of our environment and the broad direction of our international posture set out in the Government's Foreign and Trade Policy White Paper published in 1997.
The White Paper reaffirms that Australia seeks to work with other countries to achieve our strategic objectives, and it recognises the strategic interests and objectives we share with our friends and neighbours in the region. It places strong emphasis on our international defence relationships, including our key alliance with the United States, our bilateral and multilateral regional linkages and the importance we place on cooperating with a strong New Zealand Defence Force. We emphasise particularly our long-term interest in good defence relations with Indonesia.
The Government believes that Australia's armed forces will continue to have a vital role in our overall strategic and foreign policy. We cannot easily predict when or where Australia might need to deploy its armed forces. We think it important to both clearly establish our enduring strategic interests and objectives, and ensure we have forces to protect them under a wide range of circumstances.
This has been the approach we have taken in this White Paper. We have aimed to provide a clear and comprehensive statement of our strategic imperatives, and to spell out the principles that guide our force-development decisions.
The Government has reaffirmed the primacy in our defence planning of self-reliance in defending our own territory from direct attack. Such an attack is not at all likely under current circumstances, but Australia should, as a matter of enduring national policy, maintain the capacity to independently defend its sovereign territory against any threat that may emerge.
This means the maintenance of air and naval forces able to deny maritime approaches to any hostile forces and the capability to defeat any incursions onto our soil, without relying on help from the combat forces of other countries.
But while the self-reliant defence of Australia remains the basis of our defence policy, it is not the limit of that policy. Our security equally depends on developments in our neighbourhood and beyond.
Over recent years the demands on the ADF, especially for peace keeping and other lower-level operations, have increased sharply. Many of these operations have been far from home - in Africa and the Middle East, including the Gulf. But the most pressing demands have been for operations in our immediate neighbourhood.
Today the ADF is deployed on operations in East Timor, Bougainville and Solomon Islands. These operations serve important Australian security interests, as well as urgent humanitarian needs. We may be called upon again to take a leading role in such operations. The Government is determined to ensure that our defence forces are adequately prepared and equipped to work with our neighbours to protect shared interests and fulfil our responsibilities in the immediate region.
Beyond our immediate neighbourhood, Australia has important interests in helping to support the stability of Southeast Asia, the wider Asia-Pacific, and the global security framework. The Government is realistic about the scale of contribution Australia can make to the security of the wider region and beyond.
We will not develop capabilities specifically to undertake operations beyond our immediate region. But where our interests are engaged and circumstances warrant, Australia will be prepared to contemplate providing forces to coalitions supporting regional security. The forces we develop for the defence of Australia will give us a significant range of options to make such contributions.
To meet all these strategic objectives, the Government has decided that Australia needs to maintain two key sets of capabilities.
First, we need high-technology air and naval forces that can defend Australia by controlling our air and sea approaches. These forces can also contribute to regional coalitions in higher-level conflicts, as well as support forces deployed in our immediate neighbourhood.
Second, we need highly deployable land forces that can operate both in the defence of Australia and to undertake lower-level operations in our immediate neighbourhood.
To do this, we need to maintain the full range of military capabilites we have today, and significantly enhance many of them over the coming decade. We need to increase the readiness, deployability and combat weight of our land forces, and progressively upgrade our air and naval forces to keep pace with evolving technologies and capabilities. The government is determined to ensure that the ADF will have the capability to both fight and win.
This will require an increase in Defence spending. The effective use of that increase, as well as the existing level of expenditure, also requires a new approach to defence planning to provide Defence with a clear long-term program of development to meet Australia's strategic objectives.
The Government has provided this in the Defence Capability Plan, which is set out in the White Paper. The Defence Capability Plan sets goals for the development of each major group of capabilities, and provides detailed, costed programs for their development. It tells Defence exactly what the Government expects, and provides a much clearer basis for financial management and programming within Defence itself.
The Defence Capability Plan covers the next ten years, and takes account of the need to invest within that period on new capabilities which will only come into service in the decade commencing 2010. Within the disciplined framework of the Plan, the Government has made major decisions about the future of all our major capabilities.
The Army will be maintained at the increased levels of readiness that it has reached following the INTERFET deployment. Under this plan six battalion groups will be held at high readiness including a parachute battalion, two light infantry air-mobile battalions, a motorised battalion and a mechanised battalion. The current SAS regiment will be maintained and the commando battalion will be fully developed. The logistics capacity for the support of these units will be greatly improved.
Their firepower and mobility will also be enhanced. Two squadrons of Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters will enter service, providing the Army with a major new capability. An additional squadron of troop lift helicopters will also be deployed.
To better protect our forces, the Armoured Personnel Carrier fleet will undergo a major upgrade; new air defence missile systems and highly mobile mortar systems will enter service in the coming years, and our battalions will receive advanced thermal surveillance systems.
Soldiers within our deployable land forces will receive improved body armour, weapons, night vision equipment and communication systems. In combination, these systems will ensure the Australian soldier remains one of the world's most effective combatants - in both peacekeeping and war.
The capabilities of our soldiers will be further improved by development of an enhanced combat training centre at which sophisticated computer systems will allow the most advanced simulated training possible. This will be a world class facility.
The Government has given particular attention to the Reserves. They will be given a major new role in providing the follow-on troops to sustain long-term deployments. Legislative changes we have already announced will enable the Government to call forward reserves in a much wider range of circumstances, to help meet the demands which may well be placed on the ADF over coming years. For those who join, the Reserves will become a more demanding, but also a more rewarding commitment.
The Defence Capability Plan commits the Government to a sustained program of investment in the air and maritime capabilites so important to the defence of Australia. The plan includes upgrades and eventual replacement for the F-18 and F-111 aircraft, new air refuelling aircraft, a major upgrade to our surface fleet including the construction of a new class of major warship later in the decade, and a program to bring the Collins submarines up to their full potential.
And, after careful consideration, the Government has decided to proceed with the acquisition of four AEW&C aircraft, with an option of up to another three at a later date.
All of this will cost a great deal. To achieve the capability enhancements set out in the Defence Capability Plan, the Government will increase defence spending by $500 million in financial year 2001-02 and by a further $500 million in 2002-03, providing an additional $1 billion that year. Thereafter defence spending will continue to rise by 3 per cent in real terms in each year of the remainder of the decade.
The capability enhancements in this White Paper will result in a $23 billion increase in Defence funding over the coming decade - a significant increase in defence funding by any standard.
This is a much more specific funding commitment than in any White Paper over the past twenty-five years. It will provide the first significant real increases in defence spending in fifteen years. And we have taken the unprecedented step of providing funding projections over the entire decade.
On the basis of current expectations that the economy will grow about 3 per cent per annum over the decade, Defence spending will therefore be maintained at its present percentage of around 1.9 per cent of GDP.
This firm commitment to realistic increases in Defence funding will be welcomed by the vast majority of Australians, who recognise the importance of our armed forces to Australia's long-term future. It will, of course, be especially important to those men and women who accept the special challenge of a career in our Defence Force.
This White Paper places special emphasis on the people of Defence. They are a tremendous national asset. The Government intends that this White Paper will make clear not just what the Government expects of them, but also that the Government understands what they need to do the job. They are immensely committed to the vital work they do - I hope the decisions and commitments we are announcing today will demonstrate how strongly we value their contribution.
The White Paper also details a range of measures and initiatives to address some of the real issues, which confront our service personnel. The men and women of the ADF do a job unlike any other, and they are in so many ways exceptional people. But they are also people like the rest of us, who wish to raise families, own homes and educate their children. We need to make sure that the special demands of service life do not make these things harder than they should be. Getting these things right, so that we can recruit and retain good people into the ADF, will be one of the keys to our future military strength.
The Government has decided to increase support and funding for the Australian Services Cadets Scheme. It believes the scheme provides worthwhile and challenging experiences for many young Australians and can result in a lifetime interest in the Australian military.
The Government believes that the White Paper's decisions and commitments will also provide certainty to those in industry who make a vital contribution to our defence. The ADF needs to rely on a wide range of people and businesses to develop and deliver the capabilities needed, and the Government places high priority on building effective partnerships between Defence and the private sector.
We also want to use our defence investment to help foster skills, innovation and technologies in Australia and, of course, provide jobs where possible. The programs announced in this White Paper will have important consequences for many sectors of Australian industry. For example, our shipbuilding industry should benefit from plans to undertake major upgrades and new construction work.
Of course there are many more important elements to this White Paper. They are detailed in the document and will be spelled out in more detail by the Minister for Defence and his colleagues, the Minister assisting him, the Hon Bruce Scott, and Senator Abetz. I would like to thank them and their team in Defence for the work that has gone into this White Paper. I would also like to thank my colleagues in the National Security Committee of Cabinet and officials from the departments of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Foreign Affairs and Trade, Treasury and Finance and the Office of National Assessments, all of whom have made a major contribution.
In addition, I particularly thank the Chief of the Defence Force and the three service chiefs for their valuable input in the course of preparing the White Paper.
The Government has every reason to be proud of this White Paper. It is one of its major achievements.
It sets new standards in the clarity with which the fundamentals of our strategic policy are explained.
It sets new standards in the detailed program we have set down for the development of our defence forces.
It sets new standards by providing specific and unambiguous long term funding guidance for Defence.
And it sets new standards in the way in which the people of Australia have been drawn into the policy process.
I believe the result should maintain the healthy level of bipartisanship on the basics of Australia's strategic policy that we have seen in this place for many years.
The decisions set out in this White Paper ensure Australia will gain and maintain, well into this new century, the capabilities needed to defend this nation and make a responsible contribution to the security of our region.
I seek leave to table "Defence 2000 - Our Future Defence Force".