The prevalent issue concerning the Australian defence industry in the March quarter 2009 has been the question of how much the financial crisis and pressures on the budget will result in a deferment of expenditure by the Australian defence industry. The Rudd Government has said that it expects the financial crisis to take $115bn from its revenue in 2009, while the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures confirmed, as at the end of March, almost 600,000 people are jobless. Almost all sectors of the economy and the government are ailing. This makes Rudd's election promise of a 3% real increase in defence spending per annum from 2009 onwards a difficult one to keep. Defence is targeted to have a 3% real increase in funding for its $22.4bn budget in 2009, with similar rises each year until 2018. The global financial crisis has already forced the Defence Department to shelve plans to buy billions of dollars' worth of military equipment, including a new $5bn maritime surveillance system. The economic downturn will also mean the navy will not exercise the option to acquire a fourth air warfare destroyer worth $2bn, and it could force a one-year delay in plans to spend $16bn on 100 F-35 joint strike fighters. A white paper designed to chart Australia's defence strategy to 2030 is due to be published next month. However, doubts are emerging as to whether the National Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC) will sign off on the document in time. It was originally planned to be released in December 2008. The RAAF had hoped to replace its 32-year-old fleet of Orion AP-3C maritime surveillance planes with a combined mix of unmanned aerial systems and a new patrol aircraft, the Boeing P-8A Poseidon. The Rudd Government has now effectively ended hopes for the early acquisition of the $1.5bn Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial System - part of an ambitious 15-year project to revolutionise maritime surveillance requirements. Drafts of the white paper, which is expected to be released mid-year, reportedly call for a fleet of 12 newgeneration submarines (costing up to $25bn), and 100 new Joint Strike Fighters (costing about $16bn).
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