Defence cuts may 'undermine national security'
Posted Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:13am AEDT
Critics say the Federal Government's plan to cut $10 billion from the Defence Department could undermine national security.
Most of the cuts, planned for over the next decade, are expected to come from the Department's civilian workforce.
Stephen Jones from the Community and Public Sector Union says this could threaten the nation's security.
"What this means is that you're going to have more uniforms out of the field and behind the desk," he said.
"If you want to reduce the size of the civilian workforce, or if you want to find 5 per cent savings in the non-military side of the Defence force budget, what that will ultimately lead to is men and women in uniform performing work that is currently performed by civilians.
"That's not in the national interest."
The Australia Defence Association's Neil James is also concerned the plan will affect Australian military operations.
"Cuts for allegedly financially efficient reasons in the past, have detrimentally affected the operational efficiency of the Defence force," he said.
"Any pursuit of efficiencies in the Department of Defence is going to have to be done really carefully.
"And we would be sceptical whether you can save a billion dollars a year for 10 years.
"You may be able to get a billion dollars a year in the initial years, but whether you can get a billion dollars a year in the years four to seven would be quite problematic."
The Opposition's defence spokesman Nick Minchin says there is no way those savings can be found in the civilian sector alone, and the capacity of the nation's Defence force will suffer.
"I'm extremely worried about the impact these sorts of cuts could have on our defence forces," he said.
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said the previous government had failed to budget the Defence Department properly
ABC
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