''It won't be a priority, in my view, this year to make judgments about the receipt or the delivery or the arrival of future or additional Joint Strike Fighters,'' he said at the Australian Defence Magazine Congress in Canberra yesterday.

The congress was also told combat-hardened female Canadian army veterans would be coming to Australia next month to assist in the implementation of a five-year plan to open up all Australian Defence Force combat positions to women and that Defence should brace itself for serious funding cuts in the May budget.

''The government is not delivering on its 2009 Defence White Paper commitments,'' Australian Strategic Policy Institute budgetary analyst Mark Thompson said.

He said savings under the strategic reform program had been exaggerated, capability planning was unrealistic, Defence's long-term plans were unaffordable and further budget cuts were to be expected in May as the government sought its ''holy grail'' of a 2013 budget surplus.

Mr Smith, who fears delays in the JSF program could leave Australia with an air-warfare capability gap, said he was more focused on what would happen with the first 14 planes - only two of which Australia is contractually obliged to take - than the second tranche right now.

Probable decisions this year would include what to do if there was a capability gap and when the delivery of the remaining 12 JSFs from the first batch would be scheduled.

In the event of an emerging capability gap ''additional Super Hornets is an obvious option''.

He is due to receive a submission from the Defence Materiel Organisation on the next 58 JSFs, the so-called ''second tranche'', around September or October.

Further JSF delays are considered likely because of a recent Pentagon decision to defer the purchase of 179 planes until after 2017.