Statement - Defence response to The Australian article

Defence strongly disagrees with the article published in The Australian on 28 March 2022 entitled 'Defence boost amid blowouts'.

Defence has proactively responded to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic to some acquisition projects by redirecting funding from impacted projects to fund additional sustainment activities that contribute to capability. 

The deliberate strategy to redirect funding to increase capability through sustainment activities has included the following in 2021–22:

• $409.7 million for Estate and Infrastructure activities, including base services and maintenance work supporting local industry and the implementation of the Protection Level Framework enhancing base security across Australia.
• $265.4 million for additional sustainment activities across the Services. 
• $155.4 million for ICT sustainment activities to further enhance and strengthen Defence ICT networks and systems. 

The capability enhancements through these sustainment activities would not have occurred without the redirection of funds.

Approximately 80 per cent of sustainment spending occurs in Australia. Accordingly, this approach has directly benefited the Australian economy and supported job creation, infrastructure development and skills acquisition during important stages in Australia’s recovery from COVID-19.

Any attempt to use a singular metric such as availability hours as a basis for whether an asset is meeting their operational and/or training requirements is misleading and inaccurate.

To be clear, at no time in 2020–21 or 2021–22 has the ADF failed to achieve any directed operational tasking.

Notwithstanding the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Defence is proud to have continued to deliver on its mission, enabling the Australian Defence Force to support tasks, such as Operations Flood Assist, COVID-19 Assist, and Tonga Assist.