By mid 2002, John Howard decided to buy the Joint Strike Fighter, well before Defence completed its professional assessment of the contenders, which was due in 2005 or 2006. The department's study, Air 6000, was rendered irrelevant by Howard's decision. In June 2002, Robert Hill, the Defence minister at the time, announced the selection of the plane, which is being developed by the US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. The news of Australia's largest military acquisition came only two weeks after Lockheed Martin briefed Howard in Washington, where the prime minister was seeing George W Bush. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that the Joint Strike Fighter is being built in Texas, but then, the decision could hardly have hurt Howard's burgeoning friendship with Bush. The decision certainly took Lockheed Martin's international-programs director for the Joint Strike Fighter by surprise: Mike Cosentino reportedly said he was "absolutely flabbergasted" that the company's plane was chosen so early in the development process.
Budgets and delivery timetables soon came under pressure, as is common when buying military technology that is still in development. The already staggering cost of $16 billion for "up to" 100 planes is expected to rise; deliveries are now due to begin in 2013, instead of 2012. And one rash decision was followed by another: late last year, Howard gave the current Defence minister, Brendan Nelson, the authority to buy a second type of plane, to cover any problems arising from the premature decision to buy the Joint Strike Fighter. The official announcement of the purchase of 24 Super Hornet fighters, for $6 billion, was made on 6 March this year. That figure far exceeds the already generous Defence budget. Yet again, due process was not behind the decision to spend billions on planes which no one, other than the US Navy, wants to buy. South Korea and Singapore are buying the latest version of the highly capable US F-15, following exhaustive studies - studies in which the Super Hornet did not even make the short-list. Howard's willingness to give Nelson an extra $6 billion is not how responsible governments are supposed to operate. Standard fiscal rules require that ministers stay within their departmental budget, other than in an emergency. Ironically, Howard's principal justification for his early choice of the Joint Strike Fighter was that it would save money, by replacing two different types of plane currently operated by the RAAF, the F-18 Hornet and the F-111 fighter-bomber.
Before the Super Hornet announcement, the RAAF and the Defence department wanted to stick with the original proposal to buy only the Joint Strike Fighter, which they view as superior, as well as much cheaper. Although Nelson's announcement makes it hard for senior figures to go on the record, they insist that the Joint Strike Fighter will be delivered to the RAAF in 2013, obviating the need to go to the trouble and expense of buying a stop-gap plane such as the Super Hornet. Moreover, a cabinet submission made by Defence shortly before Christmas said that no decision on whether a stop-gap plane would be required has to be made until 2008. As a retired air vice-marshal, Peter Cross, pointed out in the Sydney Morning Herald, it is extraordinary for a government to make an extremely expensive military purchase "when the department of Defence is adamant that it did not ask for, or recommend, the aircraft". Cross also noted that a Pentagon report "is damning of the Super Hornet in areas critical to Australia's operational requirements".
Even if the F-111s are prematurely retired, the RAAF will still have 70 F-18 fighters, which are undergoing a $3-billion refurbishment. They are being equipped with a long-range missile which is better than anything that will come with either the Super Hornet or the Joint Strike Fighter. This was always intended to cover any gap in airpower. Not that a military attack is likely in the next decade, according to defence planners. Why then was the Super Hornet decision taken before the department's 2008 timetable? Perhaps because 2008 is after the federal election, in the lead-up to which Howard wants to look strong on national security. Normally, traditional conservatives and military buffs alike would have no trouble with that. But the Super Hornet announcement has been attacked by almost every independent commentator, including those who usually like nothing more than the government buying a new fighter plane.
Even before the announcement, the head of Treasury, Ken Henry, had expressed concerns about the decision-making process. In a speech in February of this year, he said that the safeguards introduced by the 2003 review of Defence procurement provide a considerable measure of protection, "but only if you insist on those arrangements being followed". Although Henry did not say so, the choice of the Joint Strike Fighter in 2002, before the Air 6000 study was anywhere near complete, does not appear to meet these procedural requirements.
