The Federal Opposition's latest position on its Defence policy has been spelt out in this weekend's West Australian newspaper.
Faced with the policy choice of cancelling his two free submarines or cancelling capabilities already prioritised in the Defence White Paper, Mr Beazley has decided to decide nothing until after the next election.
According to the West Australian's correspondent "The Federal Opposition is planning to keep secret what new military hardware a Labor government would buy...until after the Federal election."
After two weeks of questioning Mr Beazley has quietly dropped his earlier commitment to the White Paper.
As recently as the 29th of December Mr Beazley wrote in the Australian Newspaper, "Get on with the Defence capability plan."
As recently as last week the shadow Minister said, "Labor has stated that it believes the White Paper got it just about right. Just about right in terms of dollars and just about right in terms of capability and force structure."
Mr Beazley's spokesman, speaking to the West Australian last week was confirming the free subs policy by saying that the policy "may have meant two less frigates."
Of course this statement confirms that the Opposition's thinking is to scrap White Paper capability to pay for its new priorities.
The most likely capability to be cut by the Opposition is the Army because this is what the Opposition did whilst in office back in 1991.
The latest press briefing from the Opposition on its Defence policy however raises new questions about its real intentions.
Until now the issue had been the Opposition's priorities within the Defence budget.
However yesterday the Opposition was not saying it was committed to the Government's forward budget but rather "like costings on other policies, Labor would not produce costings for its Defence policy until it had received a full report on the state of the budget."
That report is not due until the last weeks of the Federal election campaign.
Since December Kim Beazley has consistently endorsed the White Paper and called for its implementation. The Opposition has also consistently questioned the Government's commitment to bipartisanship.
In reality Mr Beazley will make no commitment on the allocation of funds until the last weeks of the election campaign and he won't detail his allocation of priorities until after the election.
So the man who bungled the Collins class submarines and who could never meet the objectives he set for Defence when he was Minister is now incapable of presenting a coherent Defence policy and has no commitment to being open with the Australian people.
What a joke!- the Shadow Minister last week urged the Government to "put Defence on the agenda for open public debate" and then said "I want to keep most of my powder dry for the election campaign"!
The Shadow Minister said "anything which gives Defence Industry some greater certainty is a good thing."
How does the Opposition justify then undermining the certainty which Defence Industry thought had been provided by the Opposition's earlier responses to the White Paper?
Only last week the Shadow Minister said of the White Paper, "I have no essential quarrel with the funding approach announced last December. It appears about right."
This is obviously not the thinking now of the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Beazley says spending will only be determined in the final weeks of the next election campaign.
The Shadow Minister said last week of the White paper, "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and Labor is certainly blushing."
The Opposition should be blushing - not because it intends to imitate the Government but rather because it is as hopeless on Defence policy in Opposition, as it was when Labor was last in Government.
