Richard Marles says the Defence Department has a “way to go” before achieving excellence following the Financial Review’s revelations of tensions between minister and military.
of his frustrations with his department in an extraordinary parliamentary spray, as the opposition demanded Mr Marles lift his game, while industry warned squabbling over finalising a new list of planned equipment acquisitions risked sending contractors broke.
“The prime minister has said this, the deputy prime minister has said this, and this is what we get from them – weak leadership, chaos, dysfunction and cuts to Defence capability.Advertisement They also feel Mr Marles is not turning around briefs quickly enough, and his insistence on being referred to as DPM – for Deputy Prime Minister – instead of MinDef pointed to higher ambitions.
The $800,000 refurbishment was done without the knowledge of Mr Marles or his staff and there was a suspicion the department had tried to manage any political fallout by passing off the cost to the minister. In parliament, Mr Marles sheeted home blame for the department’s cultural failings to the Coalition, saying during its time in power a succession of defence ministers had been demoralising, along with $45 billion in unfunded announcements and the age of the navy’s surface fleet.“There is a lot of mess to clean up, which this government is committed to doing.