Sorry but I don't think this is the right place to be posting 'political claptrap' press releases from politicians, regardless of which side of politics, either the Left or the Right.
It is, as you say, a mod's call, but I feel the post was intended to illustrate the defence bipartisanship which tends to reign in Australia to a greater degree than most places, and is very relevant to the likelihood of the Submarine project continuing relatively smoothly after a likely change of government.
@John Newman & @oldsig127 I've read the post and IMO @Jack Wyatt hasn't breached the rules because he quoted only part of the text that is relevant to the ongoing discourse in this thread and he provided the source as required by the rules. Another Mod may have a different view but that is my opinion.
I tend to agree , but what political parties say and do are very different.
I would take it a step further and say certain politicians support defence and other certain politicians don't, irrespective of which party they belong to, or whether they are left or right of centre. I would note that the pollies most often responsible for defence cuts and dopy defence decisions tend to be to the extremes of left or right and driven by ideological beliefs that leave little room for any form of bipartisanship, common sense, of anything that is not of personal interest or benefit to them. They will destroy a project from within, defence or other, for no reason other than political capital.
.Some of the points you make are spot on.I would take it a step further and say certain politicians support defence and other certain politicians don't, irrespective of which party they belong to, or whether they are left or right of centre. I would note that the pollies most often responsible for defence cuts and dopy defence decisions tend to be to the extremes of left or right and driven by ideological beliefs that leave little room for any form of bipartisanship, common sense, of anything that is not of personal interest or benefit to them. They will destroy a project from within, defence or other, for no reason other than political capital.
The attack on the Collins Project is but one example of that, there was also the cancelling of the Fremantle replacement program (OPC) in favour of a life extension then the totally inadequate Armidales. Ironically when things looked to be getting back on track with proposed OCV program to replace the PBs, MCMVs and Hydro / Oceanography fleets, Labors determination to destroy everything that smelt of Rudd, saw a carbon copy of the mistakes made under Howard with the plan switched to a life extension of something that was not good enough, then the cheapest PB option to replace them later. The fact the RAN is now finally getting OPVs is a sign that, although both the left and right outliers are screaming their heads off, that Australian pollies are starting to put politics aside on the important stuff and listen to the experts.
In Australia it is the looney left that is usually the problem where defence is concerned as the extreme right here tend to be (as well as unelectable), ultra nationalist nutbags, with little if any idea of defence. They would most be happy with a para military force bashing and deporting anyone that didn't fit a very narrow view of what was "Aussie", yelling that we need ballistic missile subs and SU35XXXXXXXXXs and would be blind sided that we couldn't afford it, even after ending all foreign aid. Some of the rhetoric actually really annoys me, the rant about how useless, cowardly, politicised and out of touch our military leaders are because bastardisation is illegal and non-white, non males can now serve
At least we don't seem to be cursed with the neo-con economic rationalists that the US (and UK?) has suffered from in the last decade or so, people who slash and burn defence and everything else with no view to the long term consequences. That said we did come very close with the proposed Japanese sub build that would have been the end of Australian shipbuilding following the mess Smith made of AWD. That however appears to have had more to do with DFAT being on an alliance building rampage and the WA mafia wanting all local defence spending concentrated in the South West of WA, than economic rationalism.
They were more the commie / socialist variety rather than the Green type, though Lee Rhiannon, a long term commie, later joined the greens, though she's too far left for even them apparently. Labors left was still very much socialist but Whitlam had exorcized the card carrying communists from the party in the late 60s. In the 80s Jerry Hand was about as left as you could get in Labor but even he (though choking back tears) supported Australian deployment to the 91 Gulf War.
Yep, pollies speak one thing and do something completely different. The Indians in the old western movies had it right when they said that someone spoke with "forked tongue". I think that describes pollies perfectly.
Mind full of the thread.
I'm a Wasp as well, not sure what generation we're up to now but my dads paternal grandmother was the last ancestor born os. I don't see that physical standards are dropping, what I do see is more coaching and less washing out, but still if people cannot meet the required standards separation still occurs. What bothers me is some seem to have the attitude that they are perfect and everyone else sucks, and that anyone who (in their opinion) sucks shouldn't be there and they deal with this by behaving like bitchy school girls or passive aggressive school prefects applying malicious compliance to undermine others.
Nice to hear the RAN is doing better (compared to past as indicated). Having gone through first the old RAN Naval College as a "matric' (not junior entry but entry half way through approx. 4 years) then 'washing out' after one year to 'soldier on' with the RAN FAA via RAAF Pilot training (years begin 1966 to end of 1968) I have a fair idea of the 'old methods' (my way or the high way) of training. The RAN contingent in the Pilot Course before my own (67) was 66 pilot course wherein only one out of six graduated. Some (3) 'scrubbed' went on to Observer School (at that time in USofA) whilst others left altogether. My own course of four had the four graduate end of 1968 at RAAF Pearce. To say we 'cadet pilots' were motivated was an understatement but we were cool with it also - we could only do our best. So some 'talent' was not wasted so to speak but arbitrary indeed. Now to my point. Over the last several years I have read about new RAAF pilot training methods. The instructor changes method to suit the trainee. What a revelation!
Thereby more pilots graduate as better pilots. A better use of limited resources I would think - safety in RAAF jets is excellent (also other factors are involved I realise such as type of jet etc.).They are not only taking females and they are picking and choosing for the infantry because most blokes who apply aren't physically up to it. In fact there's quite a few blokes corps transferring out of the infantry for better career options and / or they have been broken.
Race has absolutely nothing to do with it, gender has.
Be nice if the same happens for the P-8 as well.
