Minister for Defence - Interview with Sally Warhaft, 774 ABC Radio

WARHAFT:

Defence Minister David Johnston is on the line.

We spoke earlier in the week with David Feeney, the Labor Shadow Defence Minister, about building submarines in Australia and he said ‘we should try harder, we have the people’, and of course since then quite a few other issues have come up in the Defence portfolio.

David Johnston the Defence Minister joins us on the line now, good morning.

JOHNSTON:

Good morning Sally.

WARHAFT:

Thank you for joining us.

JOHNSTON:

My pleasure.

WARHAFT:

Before we get to submarines and other such matters, how concerned are you about Australians fighting for groups like ISIS in Syria and Iraq? We heard obviously last night the AFP have issued arrest warrants, how much does it worry you?

JOHNSTON:

Well Sally I, George Brandis, Julie Bishop and the Prime Minister are extremely concerned about that and not a day goes by that we don’t address that issue from each of our portfolio perspectives.

Now of course I don’t want to signal what we’re doing, but that is a very, very serious ongoing threat to the wellbeing of Australians. We are conscious of our responsibility there and, as I say, every day we give consideration as to how our particular agencies are functioning and are resourced in going forward to provide surveillance and protection for Australians in that regard.

WARHAFT:

George Brandis last night said that ‘this was the biggest threat to Australians in years’ I think were his words.

JOHNSTON:

I certainly agree with that.

WARHAFT:

Is this increased sort of threat, comes at the same time of course that the Government putting through amendments to our security and surveillance services, is this a deliberate idea to bring these two things together? That people should be very, very scared like post-9/11 and therefore this is the opportunity to curb our freedoms by introducing quite, well some would say draconian methods of metadata collection and threats of punishment to journalists revealing sensitive information and that sort of thing?

JOHNSTON:

Well Sally given 9/11, given two episodes in Bali, given the London bombings I think right-thinking people would understand that the Government has a clear responsibility to provide as much protection and forewarning as to threats to their wellbeing as is possible.

In order for our agencies to do their work they must have the legal authority, that’s the way we function in Australia.

For George Brandis to go forward with this I think is very good, it means that we are contemplating what we should be thinking about, we are actively assessing our disposition with respect to the management of what is clearly a very problematic issue in terms of our national security.

WARHAFT:

Do you think though the arrest warrants that were issued yesterday to the two young Australian men fighting for ISIS, was the collection of metadata for example something that would have assisted the AFP?

I mean it seems to me that whatever intelligence services you needed as a Government were right there for you in order to trace and track and identify these threats to our society.

JOHNSTON:

I think you can be very confident Sally that we would not be collecting material for the sake of prying into the private lives of Australians, we are collecting the data because of the threat, it’s that simple.

WARHAFT:

Well it’s not that simple actually, I mean it’s a very, in fact, nuanced and complicated debate about where the perimeters are between security and privacy, so I think it’s not that simple.

JOHNSTON:

Well I actually think it is that simple because we have probably one of the most rigorous oversight legislative regimes in the world with respect to how we collect data and surveil people.

The intelligence services have an Inspector General, all of the warrants and all of the material that we are required to obtain before any investigation is undertaken are rigorously enforced, I know that from personal experience.

I actually believe that we are doing a very, very good job in this particular space and it’s been going on for many years regardless of the political complexion of the party in power.

WARHAFT:

I suppose you would understand though some people’s concerns when you’ve had issues such as the NSA in the United States that led to the Edward Snowden whistleblowing affair and so on that people do not want to see a situation like that in Australia where their data, for no good reason, is kept for years on end without very, very specific laws to protect them?

JOHNSTON:

Well I wouldn’t want to comment about any of that sort of stuff other than to say that if George Brandis believes that our agencies need further legislative power to deal with a clear and present threat I certainly support him.

The information I have to hand is that such a threat is clear, is present and we have a number of people who are learning very unpleasant skills and tradecraft in the Middle East right now who will one day want to come home with, I think, quite malicious intent.

We need to be able to deal with that.

WARHAFT:

The MH17 disaster, the Australian Government to that, there are already some concerns of course about sending unarmed Australian personnel to the site in order of course to try and find out what happened, to investigate the scene and to make sure that no human remains are left on the site.

JOHNSTON:

Certainly.

WARHAFT:

The area seems to be getting increasingly unsafe, how comfortable are you with this and is it going to be worth risking the lives of more Australians to do this?

JOHNSTON:

What we are doing is constant – and I mean almost hourly – risk-assessments as to our capacity to access the site. Our mission is a civil mission, it is police-led, the personnel that we are putting on the ground are unarmed.

Both sides are fully aware of our intentions and our intentions are very, very clear, that is: to retrieve the remains of our people that have been effectively murdered in this atrocity. That is simply all we are doing.

We are then going to assist in the further enquiry into the matter, but let me stress this is a police-led mission and our personnel will be unarmed.

WARHAFT:

I’m not sure if you can have a civil mission in the middle of a warzone when both these sides that you’ve just talked about have not been prepared to stop their conflict to assist in any sort of coalition attempt to investigate.

It’s already so many weeks that have gone, two weeks now that have gone by.

JOHNSTON:

It’s very difficult for us to take action other than with the full and clear knowledge of both sides in seeking to assure them that our mission does not in any way reflect either way on their particular aspirations and objectives.

All we are interested in is recovering what’s left of our people and then assisting as we can into the further enquiry into the matter.

It’s a very clear mission, we’ve told them what we’re doing, they’ve all agreed that we can access the site, but of course we cannot control the hostilities that are apparently raging around the site.

But I think our position is clear, our motives are honourable and we will stick to our guns until we can achieve our mission as best we can in the timeframes that present themselves.

WARHAFT:

So is that what you’re saying, that no matter what you’re going to stick to your guns or is there a point, either in time or in terms of a potential escalation of the difficulties on the ground, that you would actually say ‘this is not worth risking the safety of people anymore, we’re pulling out’?

JOHNSTON:

I’m not going to speculate as to how this will play out. I know what our mission is and I’ve set that out to you, it’s a civil mission, we want to recover the remains of our people, the remains that we believe are still available there, and repatriate them to their loved ones, and we are fully committed to that objective.

As and how this plays out is pure speculation. We’re hoping to be on the site very, very soon.

WARHAFT:

Alright, David Johnston.

We did talk, Jon Faine as I mentioned earlier, did talk to David Feeney earlier in the week about building submarines in Australia and he said that we should try harder, that we have the expertise, we have the manufacturing capability in Australia to build our own submarines.

Isn’t there a massive benefit from having these militarily sensitive projects done right here at home?

JOHNSTON:

I find it very interesting that Mr Feeney would want to talk about submarines when since 2008, for many, many years his Government as it was did absolutely nothing with respect to submarines.

WARHAFT:

Well perhaps that’s part of the reason why it’s your job now, so where do you think they will be built?

JOHNSTON:

We’re starting with effectively a clean slate, but what we have said is our first priority is to repair the Air Warfare Destroyer programme which is currently, as you would know, underway focussing on Adelaide.

Three ships in that build and what we have inherited of course is a project that is in complete disarray and in fact has been covered up by the previous Government.

We are currently running at 150 man-hours per tonne when the international benchmark is 60 man-hours per tonne.

No one of course in the previous Government told anybody about that, these figures have been around for some time and my first task is to remediate that programme which is some $300 million over budget, of course they sat on that.

They’ve had a lot to say about shipbuilding but of course there were several examples of opportunities to build ships in Australia that the Labor Party did not take on.

The fact is I am flat out repairing the mess that I’ve inherited in the Defence-space from the Labor Party.

WARHAFT:

Well what do you think you will do about it? You’ve got obviously a limited amount of money, the age of austerity and so on, although of course the Government is keen to increase Defence spending.

JOHNSTON:

Well we have done that.

WARHAFT:

What is your priority then? How can you increase Defence spending and even talk about making submarines or some sort of shipbuilding capacity here?

JOHNSTON:

Sally in the last Budget we took the Defence budget from about 1.56% of GDP – which was last at those levels in 1938 – we’ve taken GDP share for Defence to 1.8%.

We’re headed toward 2% of GDP inside 10 years, that’s our promise and we’re on a path to achieving that, but the first priority for us is to repair what is Australia’s most complex acquisition programme and that is the three Air Warfare Destroyers.

One ship has been assembled, we’re in the process of building the blocks and assembling the other two.

That project will take us out to about 2020-2022 and accordingly getting that right means for South Australia and for other shipbuilders in Australia that there will be an opportunity to build a further eight ships.

Now we’re not prepared to give the industry a blank cheque.

We’ve had a couple of industry performers that have done very well and there’s some that have done very poorly, those numbers that I mentioned to you, 150 man-hours per tonne, is simply unacceptable.

$300 million over budget – which was never disclosed prior to the election – we’ve had to deal with that, we’ve had to step in and remediate that and we’re currently unfolding a solution to that problem so that we can then go forward and build a further eight ships in Adelaide.

That’s what’s on offer from this Government, we’ve committed to that, but only if we can get the Air Warfare Destroyer programme back on the rails cost-effectively and in a reasonable schedule.

WARHAFT:

Alright look thank you for explaining that to us, you’ve obviously got a lot on your plate at the moment and we do appreciate you giving us some time, thank you.

JOHNSTON:

My pleasure Sally, anytime, thank you.