Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee, , 37:46 to 40:00
Discussion regarding reports of a budget review within the Department of Defense and the potential for future adjustments to major capability programs like the Hunter class.
Topics: Government spending, Procurement
Speakers: Meghan Quinn, James Paterson, Unknown Speaker
>> Okay. Well, let's get into the substance of the issues. Um there was a media report by Andrew Green in the nightly uh I think on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday. Um about a budget review that has commenced inside the department. Is that accurate?
>> No.
>> Right. So um there is no review
not in the sense of, uh, anything beyond what we would normally do at this time of year. Um, as part of the PGPA responsibilities and the budget rules, uh, we do a review of, uh, our budget on a regular basis. We review it at our defense committee every month and there's various other mechanisms. uh and so we are following our usual process uh in relation to looking at our budget and managing uh to meet the budget rules and our my PGPA responsibilities as accountable officer. So there is nothing unusual in our processes this year. Uh we are working through um the mechanisms for midyear economic and fiscal update um and we'll we have various mechanisms through the course of the year in the leadup to the budget and the finalization of our financial accounts.
>> Right. Is it true that um as part of this process nothing is off the table?
>> So we we have a process of uh our project uh managers, our program managers review their activities. They provide information into our systems including our defense finance group. Uh we always review everything at all points in time.
>> Right. So everything is on the table
>> as it is every year.
>> Right. Okay. So um you won't rule out any further cuts to the Hunter class program.
>> So we go through where programs are up to and projects are up to. We have a series of different processes. Uh we've talked uh this committee before about projects of concern and projects of interest. So there's detailed project management that occurs through the course of a year. We also do uh detailed work with our industry partners to see where they're up to in terms of milestones and deliveries. That process occurs uh on a regular basis. uh there are sometimes shifts and movements in program deliverables because of either industry uh concerns or because of other