Right Pulse

Fairfax is back on its anti-Defence hobby horse. The latest article scrutinises defence contracts and finds that, shock horror, Defence spends money on fitness equipment, sport, leadership training and travel!!!!! But wait there’s more.

….two biggest beneficiaries of the Defence budget were the US government’s foreign military sales program and Australian Aerospace, a subsidiary of the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company.

Insight. Most of our equipment is of US origin, making Boeing Australia the biggest Boeing subsidiary outside the USA by employment numbers, and Australian Aerospace assembles helicopters in Brisbane. Then there are these lies:

…raising questions about the accounting rigour within the $26-billion-a-year agency

It’s not an agency but a Department – very different funding arrangements entail.

This is despite review after review warning that the department’s spending was out of control.

Government exercises control over Defence’s budget. The Department continually under achieves its budget.

…the Herald’s examination raises new questions about the accountability of a department that has become the single biggest spender of taxpayer dollars.

Not really true. The biggest spender of tax-payer dollars remains by far and away welfare, or whatever the government is calling it these days – a government-dependency class and guilt industry complex.