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The Australian federal government expects excellence from the Department of Defence, according to comments made by Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy.
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Defence is on a journey to repair its culture and reform, the minister said, speaking to ABC Radio National on 9 February.
“We’ve made it clear that we expect excellence from the Department of Defence, and that the department is on a journey,” he said.
“It’s on a journey, because we need to repair the culture and the damage that was done under nine and a half years of Coalition governments where they had six ministers in nine years, and under Peter Dutton there were 28 major projects running 97 years late and $6.5 billion over budget.”
“We’ve made no secret that we were of the intent on reforming Defence and expect excellence from the department, and I’ve got to say, we’ve got the full support of the Defence leadership as we go through that process,” Minister Conroy said.
“The taxpayers of Australia would expect us to demand the best possible performance from all government departments, but especially the Department of Defence, given the amount of money spent and the critical importance of defending our nation.”
During the same interview, Minister Conroy reaffirmed that Australia is not currently providing military support to Israel to fight conflicts in the Middle East.
The armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian forces has seen significant military action in the Gaza Strip since 7 October last year. More than 1,100 people were killed in the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October, while at least 27,000 have reportedly been killed in military actions by Israel in Gaza.
“We are not exporting military equipment to Israel. Whoever is claiming this is wrong. We do not export military equipment at the moment to Israel,” he said.
“We are not exporting weapons to Israel. End of story. That is a factual statement.
“We’re not exporting weapons or military systems, we are not exporting anything of that nature to Israel. We are not exporting military weapons, things like bombs, things like that, to Israel.
“We could be exporting commercial equipment for all I know, from commercial vendors, that’s not in the purview of the Department of Defence.
“There’s a system that deals with applications for every country that seeks to buy military weapons from Australia that requires permission from the Department of Defence. But what I can say to you is that we are not exporting weapons to Israel. That’s a factual statement.”
