It's now a year and a day since the election of Rudd Labor and, just as regularly as a grandfather clock chiming the hour, we journalists have sagely nodded and felt compelled to pontificate, deliberately and at length, about the achievements of this Government. No one cares, of course, and you've only to glance at the polls to find out why. This does not look anything like a one-term government. Who cares if Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's biggest production, so far, has been rhetoric? That's not the point.
The key to understanding the mood of Australia is to recognise that the electorate likes what it's hearing. People realise the economy is going bung even if we don't really understand just how bad the situation is but no one blames Rudd for that. The point is everyone is still willing to give him a go at doing things his own way, as he tries to fix the problems.
Voters have extended him an enormous amount of goodwill. It will take until the middle of next year before we can confidently predict that the Rudd Government will be returned, but the odds are looking pretty comfortable at the moment. The Opposition has changed leader once already, but no one cares what it is doing. All the focus is on the Government, and a significant majority of voters appear to like what they see. Not that we can actually see anything. Anyone who attempts to follow Rudd's weekly itinerary rapidly reels in giddiness with the speed at which he ricochets around the world. If today is Tuesday he must be flying back from Peru, because Washington, DC, was early last week, and time spent in Sydney and Canberra was sandwiched somewhere in between that continuing parade of international visits. And, at every step along the way, Rudd is seemingly making his presence felt; listening, absorbing, and taking on board further suggestions to improve the eventual outcome. Although many people feel the proper role of leaders is simply to grandly announce plans that have originated from within the bureaucracy, this is not the way that Rudd sees his role.
The Government still hasn't found a method of effectively dealing with Rudd's desire to be at the centre of everything; his need to personally peruse and sign off on seemingly every aspect of policy particularly in areas that interest him. In some instances, these delays don't really matter. But it's important that Rudd learns to trust and delegate to others because otherwise he will become absorbed in the detail while the business of government grinds ever more slowly and the ultimate objective recedes into the distance. However, in at least one instance this delay is having significant benefits.
The Mortimer review into defence procurement provides a classic vignette of how the system is working and where the problems lie. David Mortimer chairs both Leighton Holdings and the Defence Procurement Advisory Board, so he seemed like an ideal person to take a good hard look at the Defence Materiel Organisation, the body responsible for equipping the forces. He delivered a detailed review which makes 46 separate recommendations; covering everything from streamlining purchase decisions, buying off-the-shelf, and involving business in public-private partnerships. Perhaps most controversially he also recommended establishing the DMO as its own agency, and removing it from the control of the Defence Department.
Unsurprisingly, this suggestion has generated the most controversy. DMO chief executive Dr Stephen Gumley is already the Commonwealth's highest paid public servant. Critics of Mortimer's plan have been careful to point out that they are not attacking Gumley personally. But this hasn't stopped them insisting that it just doesn't make sense to establish a separate business, when the whole idea of the DMO is simply to obtain the equipment the military requires.
However, things look very different from the procurement perspective. The point that is made in this context is obvious: money matters. The services all want the best equipment, but sometimes it is necessary to compromise because the bottom line is also important. The DMO insists it can achieve a better result that everyone will be happy with when it is given a bit of independence and flexibility around which it can move.
These different agendas could easily lead to a complete impasse while the government waits for a decision to be handed down from Rudd's office. Fortunately, that hasn't been the case. Although trench warfare has broken out from time to time, the intervening period (while the department waits for Rudd's decision) has actually been used quite positively. Much of the credit for this goes to the Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Procurement, Greg Combet. He was something of a surprise choice for this portfolio, but his engineering training, combined with conciliation skills honed in the union movement, have provided an edge that's allowed the use of this time in a positive way.
Although the Government's response to the review is still sitting in Rudd's in-tray, it's being polished at the same time. In some areas the differences are just too big to bridge, but in others, there appears to have been progress in getting a better result. One of the advantages is that Combet doesn't have fixed ideas about the way things should be done. He's been able to strip the emotion out of the debate and this has created space to get back to the original objectives of the review.
The Government's response to Mortimer was scheduled to be tabled earlier in the year. That timing has slipped, but it can't slide much further because defence procurement has to be set on a sounder footing well before the Defence White Paper is issued in the first half of next year.
At some point a decision will have to be made, and the chances are that Australia will probably end up with some sort of behemoth executive organisation making procurement decisions that should really be taken by the services. But at least there's some manoeuvring around the edges.
Nicholas Stuart is a Canberra writer.
nicstuart@hotmail.com