The title of the review, Creating One Defence, neatly sums up what it aims to achieve with its reforms.

The review wants to increase value-for-money for the taxpayer by abolishing parochialism within the massive workforce and getting rid of the current obsession with reducing public servant headcount to find savings. Defence is currently made up of 19,300 full-time equivalent civilian public servants and 57,000 uniformed personnel from the Australian Defence Force.

Fiefdoms within the bureaucracy have promoted duplication, encouraged a sluggish response to change and an inward, rather than outward, focus.

First Principles reforms included simplifying the management structure, which included culling some positions, and absorbing the Defence Materiel Organisation back into the department.

In recent decades, a lot of work has been put into creating a defence organisation where all its workers are aligned to the same goals.

Part of this involved making sure the base rate of pay for civilians and uniformed personnel were the same.

Base pay became an efficient measure of equality because it excluded special operational payments and other allowances made to ADF members.

No one could begrudge an ADF member being paid more because he or she was on active duty or had to move their family many more times than would be expected of an average family.

The danger of not ensuring base wages remained the same, or at least closely matched, was Defence would end up with two distinct cultures forever warring against one another.

Two people working next to each other in the same set of office cubicles in Canberra and doing a similar job would be paid differently.

The nature of public administration means workmates know each other's rank and classification. They are aware of pay disparities.

Individuals in the private sector, however, are often asked to keep their pay level secret to reduce the risk of wages envy but this option is not available in Defence.

But this is the scenario Defence now faces after recent pay offers between civilians and their uniformed colleagues varied significantly.

ADF members were given 2 per cent annual increase to base wages. Civilians, who are still negotiating, were offered a 1.05 per cent yearly pay increase.

The First Principles review champions the role of Defence's often unfairly maligned civilian workforce but its admirable goal – creating one Defence – is eroded by the Abbott Government's two-tiered bargaining stance which is more favourable to ADF members and tough on public servants.