Tony Abbott has brought forward the party room vote on his leadership by one day, shortly after his possible rival Malcolm Turnbull emphasised the importance of keeping it on Tuesday.Read the entire article here.
Wow. Pure gamesmanship and to be honest a bit of nastiness on the part of Mr. Abbott.
Why is this showing up on a defense blog? Simple. Because this could affect the program that I love to hate...the F-35. The full ramifications are unknown to me and I'll be sending e-mails to a couple of Australian contacts I have (especially ELP Blog) but its already slowing things up in other areas...like a certain project to replace the LAV that is going absolutely no where till this mess is settled.
An election in Australia could have an impact on US defense procurement?!!! That's globalization for ya!
All fun and games. Like the last left government (where Labor needed Greens in a Coalition), this current government is a Coalition of mostly Liberal Party and a handful of National Party (socially conservative). The National Party went into the Coalition when the Liberals won in 2013 on a handshake deal with Abbott. While some assume the Nationals will do a Coalition with anyone else in the Liberal Party...I'm not so sure. Turnbull is leftist in some ways (believes the Carbon tax Junk Science) and some other things..that the Nationals do not like. If Abbott was put out (not guaranteed), and Turnbull is chosen by the Liberals to run the party and thus be PM...it is conditional that the Nationals sign off on it. If they think that the Liberals are not doing enough with cutting spending, and a variety of other things... they may just say screw it and let it go as an example lesson for the next time Liberals get a chance. If the Liberals do this "spill" and it is "successful", it could be possible that they won't be able to form a majority Coalition... and if the Red leftists get back in (Labor and Greens).... well, I am less concerned with which party is in charge then I am with a federal government that can submit a balanced budget each year (spend within our means). That has not happened since 2006. Deficit Federal spending with a population of 24M people where only 10-11M work and business are getting off-shored more and more.... well, the math isn't pretty. Let us see tomorrow.... More here: http://catallaxyfiles.com/2015/02/08/abbott-bad-as-a-pm-you-have-not-seen-anything-yet/
ReplyDeletehow will all this affect the defense sector. i've been trying to get info on the LAV replacement and can't find a thing where a couple of months ago the contractors were teaming up to try and win the thing. will it affect the F-35 or am i wrong and Australia is in it till the wheels come off?
DeleteSol,
DeleteWhatever party takes office, defense spending will never be cut. Sure, Australians might see in the papers of defense spending/budget being "cut" but in reality any politician or Defense Minister who managed to infuriate Defense-related issues will (and can) get himself replaced. This has happened several times. Like in any other countries, "Defense" is a collective word and synonymous to the word "a big black hole". Any cuts to Defense can easily be taken from another/a different budget "bucket" that Australian public is unaware of.
F35 will go on. LockMart has done a beautiful campaign of giving NO INFORMATION to Australian public. RAAF has done tremendous PR campaign of being quiet. No one in Australia, other than Krupp, knows much about F35.
F35-related issues/news are "filler" in our papers: It's there only when there's nothing else to write about.
PS: Prime Minister Abbott survived.
DeleteAustralia was always in it for the industrial participation & the reputations that are now tied up to the project.
ReplyDeleteAustralia was always in it for the industrial participation & the reputations that are now tied up to the project.
ReplyDeleteYou do know that China hacked in and stole the F-35 blueprints from Australia.
ReplyDeletei know for a fact that this program has been leaking like seive since day one. it happens when you have a multi-national, super dispersed with an ungodly number of sub-contractors on every continent.
Deleteit happened in the US, UK and it wouldn't surprise me if it happened in Australia.
You do know that China hacked in and stole the F-35 blueprints from Australia.
DeleteState your source.
Since day 1 of the F35 Gooneybird, Australia NEVER had any "blueprints". (I am not going to debate about how easily "hackable" Australian Defense Network is by script kiddies.)
I don't think it will have a noticeable affect on the F-35 program, Australia locked in really, the most that could happen is that the orders will be spread out over a longer time and maybe a few less total but really the first part of that is would be caused by further delays in the program itself, the second would be if our economy collapses.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a royal commision into how we (Australia) ended up on the F-35, we were in the process of running a competitive tender to replace our F-111s and classic Hornets, with the Super Hornet and Rafale considered front runners but including the Eurofighter, F-15, F-16 and Gripen (hell even Sukhoi wanted in, and were taking out ads in aviation and defence mags advertising advanced flanker derivatives and not only full licence production, but the rights to export new builds and compete for ongoing upgrades/maintenance contracts of any flanker, the were also claiming that for less than the price of 100 of any other plane in the contest we would be able to have 150 Su-34/37/37UB built in Australia, but they were never formally accepted into the contest), the F-35, while in the contest was not seriously considered as it was believed (rightly as it turns out now lol) that it would be ready too late, and was reportedly thought of as a replacement for whatever actually won the tender process at the time. But Then Howard (our PM at the time) and other senior ministers returned from a trip to the US and announced the tender process was cancelled and that the F-35 had been selected to be our next fighter!
Regarding some other comments, I don't think any political party has the balls to actually do what is required to fix the budget problems, 7 years of consecutive tax cuts (both real and increasing the amount and the thing you could claim against your tax) during a time when the economy was booming, under the last coalition government, without any major national investment in infrastructure (and putting off defence project like the AWD) only to be matched by Labor party so desperate to regain office that they almost had a bidding war as to who would tax the lowest(so for a total of 8 years of consecutive tax cuts, only one of which [by labor] went to the poorest in the community by raising the point until you have to pay income tax), has left The Australian government with a tax revenue as a proportion of GDP 11% LOWER than the OECD average! (I think the US is 10% lower than average).
I think I better stop now as this is a defence blog after all lol.
There is a Canadian Federal Election on Oct 19, 2015. The F-35 will be a major issue in this election, mostly because of the amount of money that may have to be committed to the program. A former Canadian CF-18 fighter pilot Steven Fuhr is now running for an MP spot for the Liberal Party.
ReplyDelete"If we have the courage to think for ourselves, alternatives to the F-35 exist. We cannot afford to get this wrong", Maj. Stephen Fuhr.
http://blogs.theprovince.com/2014/06/16/stephen-fuhr-the-f-35-is-totally-unaffordable-and-cant-do-what-was-promised/
I should add that Fuhr was actively against the F-35 program long before he sought office. He was on talks shows and often tweeted against the F-35 program for years.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty easy, both sides are not that dumb, they listen to experts not bloggers or ELP. They can see the F35 is right for Australia and have publicly stated so. Both sides understand the basic needs of defence of this country and are happy to fund the basics. We are a country who vote out "wanker" parties rather than vote in the best option. It doesn't really matter what happens today, this party told numerous lies, are arrogant and only worry about themselves and their rich mates. The working voters will remember the lies and vote these clowns out as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteMuch like the lies of Labor? As for Defence.... consider the history of incompetent senior leadership in that bureaucracy. http://ericpalmerblog.blogspot.com.au/p/australian-defence-reading-list.html "The F-35 is right for Australia."... especially when Defence bosses lie in Senate Estimates....every year. I am curious if you are able to tell us how "the F-35 is right for Australia"? http://ericpalmerblog.blogspot.com.au/p/f-35-reading-list.html Or do you just appeal to authority because they say so?
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