Diggers in Chinese Uniforms – What’s at stake

12-February-2010

This week the Minister for Defence Science, Materiel and Personnel, Greg Combet, backfliped on his Government’s secret plan to buy combat fabric from China. The Minister’s claim that  the Chinese supply was just an “option”, contradicts Defence confirmation of the contract and the Indi Labor candidate’s comment on local radio that “some of the material would be made in China”.

In about July 2009 Defence awarded a contract to the Bendigo-based Australian Defence Apparel (ADA) for the manufacture  of Defence’s combat camouflage uniforms – known as DPCU.

Nothing surprising there – ADA has been making uniforms for the Commonwealth since 1912.  However unlike previous contracts, this tender allowed the sourcing of fabric from China, presumably to be used when their current stock of Bruck fabric had been exhausted.  What’s also not surprising then, is that this decision has been kept secret until this week.

What’s wrong with buying fabric from China?  After all, just about our entire textile industry moved there!

Modern DPCU is not just patterned cloth.  It is a high tech fabric with a range of features designed to make it difficult for modern optical sensors to detect and target soldiers.  Australian DPCU technology has been developed largely in Australia by organizations such as the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and Bruck Textiles. It is not in our soldiers’ interest to give this recipe to a foreign manufacturer which also supplies third parties who may one day be wanting to shoot Australian soldiers.  To make matters worse, it seems that the Government was going to allow this technology to go to China.

In the second place, Minister Combet adopted Defence’s long standing “Priority Industry Capability” (PIC) policy.  This is where the Government is committed to ”ensure that certain strategically important industry capabilities continue to be available from within Australia... and which, if not available, would significantly undermine defence self reliance and Australian Defence Force capability”. Combat clothing is included as a key PIC. Under PIC policy the Chinese tender should never have been accepted.

The Federal Government and Defence in particular has a responsibility to get good value for the tax-payer dollar it spends.  But scrimping a few dollars to dress our diggers in Chinese uniforms is both a false economy and a slap in the face to our men and women in uniform for no good reason. The cost to the economy of endangering 400 jobs in NE Victoria is more significant than the alleged $1.5m savings. (Putting it in perspective, yesterday the Government announced a $50m bandaid to fix their dodgy roof insulation scheme).

And where were the unions on this?  The Textile Clothing and Footwear Union issued a statement only on the day the story broke, calling on the Minister to guarantee Australian jobs.  In the close-knit world of Labor and the Unions, I find it difficult to believe the union was unaware of the situation. Was this yet another case of the union being silent for political expediency?  Recall the barest whimper from the unions last year when Pacific Brands sacked more than 1400 workers and shipped machinery to China?  Including equipment funded by the Australian Taxpayer!

Minister Combet needs to do more than produce carefully crafted spin. He needs to guarantee that beyond the current interim contract, future DPCU will not be purchased overseas.