By Professor Andrew O’Neil, Griffith Business School
While the 2017 Defence budget confirms a commitment to large-scale projects currently in play, an emphasis on job creation in the Defence arena also moves to reaffirm the government’s ‘Australia first’ agenda.
Difficult to plan ahead
By far the most complicated dimension of defence budgets is aligning the timing of key acquisitions with the strategic guidance laid out in successive Defence White Papers. Historically, very few governments have been able to do this largely because major acquisitions are, by their very nature, devilishly difficult to control. Aircraft and naval acquisitions in particular are difficult affairs, often characterised by cost overruns, equipment delays, and changing geopolitical circumstances that sometimes throw the logic of the initial purchasing decision into question. Australia’s single most celebrated acquisition – the F-111 fighter-bomber – was ordered in 1963 because it was the only aircraft on the market that could fly non-stop to