2016-02-25
Greens spokesperson for Defence Senator Peter Whish-Wilson provides the following comments on the reports Australia has locked in the acquisiation of 12 submarines.
Senator Whish-Wilson said, “I don’t often agree with Andrew Nikolic. But in this one rare case I do. He is right to say that the idea of Australia needed 12 submarines is an ‘unscientific’ ‘Rudd Pluck’ inserted into the 2009 Defence White Paper on the urging our Kevin Rudd without any analysis.
“Of all people Andrew Nikolic should know the 12 submarines idea was a Rudd Pluck, he was working for Defence at the time.
“We need to have a Defence policy that is based around our Defence needs, not one that is based around industrial policy or grandiose ideas of Australia patrolling the South China Sea and interceding between our two biggest trading partners,” he concluded.
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Media contact: Tim Beshara 0409164603
Andrew Nikolic. 23rd June 2014. House of Representatives. “Consider submarines. We had the famous Rudd-pluck of 12 new submarines in the Defence white paper 2009.” Link here
Andrew Nikolic opinion piece. April 7 2014 “The biggest challenge here is for the White Paper to take a hard- nosed look at all current and planned equipment purchases.
It is unquestionable that the full range of planned Defence equipment purchases is simply too large for the available dollars. The White Paper needs to test the logic and the necessity of these plans. Is it really true, for example, that Australia needs 12 submarines? That number was a rather un-scientific invention of Kevin Rudd’s 2009 Defence White Paper. These assumptions must be rigorously tested, because they carry multi-billion dollar price tags.”
Link here
Vine here