Jason Clare, Australian Minister for Defence Materiel says 2011 is a big year for equipment deliveries for the defence forces.
“In Army we are: rolling out the C-RAM counter missile system in Afghanistan; the new Multicam uniform I announced in November will roll out in the next few months; and the lighter TBAS combat body armour being made by ADA in Bendigo will go with the third Mentoring Taskforce when they deploy in the middle of this year, Clare said in a Feb. 16 address to the Australian Defence Magazine Conference. Also for the army, the government is providing more protection from IED blasts for Bushmaster vehicles and in coming weeks will take the delivery of the first new G-Wagons vehicles with modules made by Varley in the Hunter.
For the air force, the government will take delivery of the final nine Superhornets and work towards the initial operating capability on the Wedgetail. In the Navy, work on the first Air Warfare Destroyer will continue to ramp up. The first blocks will be barged from Hunter and Melbourne to Adelaide this year, the first large delivery of Aegis equipment is due in April, and the workforce will keep growing. Sea trials on the Anzac Class Anti-Ship Missile Defence (ASMD) system– designed and developed by CEA here in Australia–will start soon; and the first LHD hull hits the water in Spain.
Performance needs improvement this year, he said. One of the biggest problems is schedule slips, and a recent report says the Defence Materiel Organization’s biggest 22 projects are, on average, about 30 per cent over schedule.
“When milestones aren’t met industry isn’t paid and money is reprogrammed into future years–that is bad news for Defence capability and bad news for the defence industry,” Clare said.