Australia’s Air Defence Future
Timeline
2006: Submission made to ADFRAS
In 2006 MiGMan's Flight Sim Museum made a submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Inquiry into Australian Defence Force Regional Air Superiority.
www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/adfair/ -
2016 update - the web page has gone
2006: Gatekeepers censor public debate
The Committee Secretary, Dr. Margot Kerley, supervised the editing of the original submission not once, but twice.
My submission was never presented to the standing commitee intact.
This surprised me, as I rather expected the inquiry comittee would be able to make up their own minds about the relevance of submissions. But no, apparently even a Senate Committee only receives filtered information from the unwashed masses!
After several phone calls and emails the submission was presented to the committee under the aegis of the secretary, Dr. Margot Kerley, in abbreviated form. How wonderful that we have such dedicated gatekeepers at work for us!
You can read my emails as I attempt to have the submission posted in it's original format unedited.: Censoring the voice of the citizenry
Eventually the submission was posted in an edited form, and can be read at:
>>> external web-site – www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/adfair/subs.php
2016 update - the web page has gone
Or you can read the full version yourself: PDF: My submission to ADFRAS, August 2008
I am fully cognisant that my submission was almost certainly never viewed by a member of the committee.
The attitudes of the gatekeepers have been well documented in examples such as this interview with Denis Hughes of the Office of the Minister for Defence.
Laissez-faire would be a most generous interpretation.
January 2008: New Labour govt. will look at the matter again
The newly elected Labour Government, after 11 years in the wilderness of opposition, has promised to look at all major acquisitions by the Australian Defence Force.
So there is hope yet for a logical outcome.
February 2008
The Minister for Defence, the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP, today announced the structure and details of the new Government’s promised review into the adequacy of current planning for Australia’s Air Combat Capability to 2045.
January 2009: Ask the same people = Get the same answers
Wrong again.
The new Labour Federal Government did indeed hold an inquiry. What happens when you ask the same people the same questions? You would expect to get the same answers, and so it was to be.
Why is this?
Do these people not have the national interest at heart?
Why would they recommend a deal that will jeopardise the national security of our nation?
Logic tells me that the answer lays in a toxic combination of:
- Vested interests
- Bureaucratic inertia
- Lack of understanding of the technical basis of the matter
There are undoubtably less generous interpretations that could be made.
2016: President Trump
The new US President Donald Trump has very quickly flagged the F-35 program as something that need to be looked into.
How amazing is it that after two senate enquiries in Australia, President Trump manages to see that something fundamentally corrupt is going on in the F-35 program. Something obviously antitethical to the national interest of the USA.
There is new hope that Australia can extract itself from this disastrous program and construct a truly effective national air defense.
Hopefully we can:
- Cancel the F-35
- Purchase the F-22
- Revive and refurbish the F-111
The F-111 is still un unbeatable attack platform.
The F-22 is at the leading edge of air superiority and it makes sense to adopt commonality with our major ally.
F-22A. This is the aircraft Australia should be acquiring from our ally, the USA. Japan has already done so!