(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
The federal government has announced an immediate restructure of the Defence department following the release of a review which found the department is rife with waste and inefficiency.
The review warns a failure to change could leave Australia unable to meet the military and strategic challenges facing the region.
Defence Minister Kevin Andrews has released the long-awaited "First Principles" review saying the government will adopt 75 of the review's 76 recommendations.
Amanda Cavill reports.
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The recommendations include new responsibilities for the service chiefs who head the army, the Navy and the Air Force and the abolition of the organisation which buys and manages its multi-billion dollar defence assets.
The review has found Defence is suffering from a proliferation of structures, processes and systems with unclear accountabilities causing institutionalised waste, delayed decisions and flawed execution.
Defence Minister Kevin Andrews says it's the biggest shake up across Defence in almost 30 years and will mean that Defence is equipped properly to deal with the challenges of the future.
"To achieve this defence must move from a current inefficient federated approach into a single, integrated organisation that delivers an enhanced joint capacity and indeed the title of this review 'Creating One Defence', sums up the proposal behind it. The Government has agreed, or agreed in-principle to 75 of the 76 recommendations. The review outlines a two year implementation plan with key milestones, which provides high-level direction for defence. "
Under the changes, around 1,600 defence civilian jobs will go and around $1.4 billion in defence bases could be sold.
The review also recommends Defence's policy development and intelligence functions be combined, enhancing the responsibilities of the service chiefs over weapons procurements.
The two lead organisations dealing with weapons purchasing, the Defence Materiel Organisation and the Defence Capability Group will be disbanded and their functions subsumed into the broader organisation.
It also recommends there be just three supporting committees for the Defence leadership and that layers of middle management be removed in both the civilian and military organisations.
The review's author former Rio Tinto Australian head David Peever says it's important that Defence become an integrated and efficient organisation.
"Our work concentrated on the business of defence rather than the military operations of defence. The biggest issue we found at the highest level was defence is a federated structure, operates as a lose federation where the parts are not well joined up and, therefore, not a good fit for purpose for the challenging agenda which defence has before it. "
Chief of the Defence Force Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin says there have been a number of reviews over the years but none as comprehensive as the one conducted by David Peevers.
He says the restructure has the full support of the Defence command.
"This has been a review that's been a long time coming and just consolidating those back now into a more joint organisation, from an ADF point of view there have been a number of reviews as well on where we should go to be a true joint organisation. I will say the best bit of this, it continues to blend the APS* and ADF together. Because APS deliver capability in defence, they are not some separate organisation they are a key part, we are an integrated force. One defence, and that's what brings us together with this.
Former ASIO head and now Defence department Chief Dennis Richardson says he has long felt that Defence needed to be better coordinated.
"About 18 months ago I gave a speech in which I described Defence as more of a federation rather than a unitary state. This review, the theme of it is " one defence". It involves a significant amount of change. It is necessary change and it is change which I strongly support. "
There are 56,000 men and women in the ADF and another 25,000 in the reserves.
They are supported by about 20,600 public servants.
The DMO has more than 7,000 military, civilian and contracted staff.
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