Australia can afford $100b Defence plan: Fitzgibbon

Australia can afford $100b Defence plan: Fitzgibbon

au.news.yahoo.com

Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says Australia can afford to buy all the equipment in the Defence white paper that he will announce later this morning.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Mr Fitzgibbon will reveal Defence spending plans of around $100 billion, including buying 12 new submarines, eight new ships and 100 combat aircraft.

Defence will have to find $20 billion of savings to help meet the cost.

(visit the link for the full news article)

i find this rather conflicting in that only a week ago PM Kevin Rudd announced Australia will definately go into recession.
shouldn't the $100b go towards our massive debt that they are claiming will take 20 years to clear?

with no plan of war on the horizon and no direct threats to australian soil, other than boat loads of illegals from indonesia claiming assylum, a boost to the defense force shouldn't be on top of the agenda.
i can't imagine we plan on blowing assylum seekers out of the water before they get here. it was mass hysteria when the last lot blew themselves up.

au.news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

I saw a figure of $200 billion over 20 years, so $100b over ten seems to be the rough figure.

Well, it's certainly a bizarre time to announce this level of spending, considering Australia's total GDP is somewhere in the region of $770 billion.

The government has no money - bonds are being bought from China. So, we're going to fund this with borrowed money from China, because, China is a threat?



The military-industrial complex that had a crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union seems to be making a comeback.

Personally, I think we do need greater patrol powers given the vast amount of coastline we have, but this is a massive amount of "stuff".

From the article.....

He argues that changes in the region, including the re-emergence of Russia , will mean Australia needs to boost its navy and air force.

Considering Russia isn't in our region, I don't see how they are any threat.
If it's the communism angle, then that's a bit ludicrous considering Rudds close friendship with China.

"In other words, we need to be able to defend our country without necessarily relying on the assistance of other nation states."

I see his point, but what's the use of alliances and allies if you can't call on them in your hour of need?

We give billions in aid to Indonesia to keep harmony with them.
If they are worried about them being any kind of future threat, well I wonder why they don't cease the aid and use the money to finance weapons
now instead?

Please post in the ongoing discussion:

Military ambitions

Closing

Thank you

Semper