skip banner

| Minister | Navy | Army | Air Force | Department

Defence Portfolio Budget Statements 2001-02

Section 2 Results for Government as Defence's Customer

OUTPUT FIVE: STRATEGIC POLICY

Defence is to provide timely and responsive policy advice to the Government.

PERFORMANCE SUMMARY

Overview

• The principal deliverables are:

• to provide timely and responsive strategic policy advice to the Government to enable it to make sound judgements on, and to respond to, Australia’s strategic circumstances, and specific security issues as they arise; and
• to provide strategic policy guidance to enable other areas of Defence to make sound recommendations or decisions, as appropriate, to the Government on force structure, capability development, preparedness of ADF elements, international relationship management, operational matters as they arise and national support.

• The Strategy staff also manage the Defence Cooperation program.

Key Risks and Planned Mitigation

• The principal areas of risk are:

• the prospect of deterioration in Australia’s strategic circumstances, both generally and with respect to specific potential crises;
• the need to ensure that Strategic Command Division retains, or has access to, sufficient staff to provide the capacity for continuous, 24-hour command and control; and
• the risk management of infrastructure development projects in regional countries funded under the Defence Cooperation program.

• These risks are mitigated by continuous review of the strategic environment to enable the shaping of appropriate policies, development of project management skills in relevant areas and careful personnel management.

BUDGETED PRICE TO GOVERNMENT

Significant Variations

Only those variations that impact on output performance are explained. Variations due to changed accounting processes or further refinement of attribution rules are not shown.

Defence Cooperation is forecast to increase by $2.5m in 2001-02.

DEFENCE COOPERATION

Overview

The aims and objectives of the Defence Cooperation Program are to support the Government’s strategic objectives by:

• contributing to the maintenance of regional security;

• consolidating acceptance of Australia as an obvious and legitimate participant in deliberations on issues that affect regional security; and

• as appropriate, encouraging and assisting with the development of the defence self-reliance of regional countries.

The Defence International Engagement Strategic Plan is being developed to reflect the Government’s policy directions announced in the White Paper. Relevant and measurable performance guidelines will be produced following endorsement of the plan, in line with a recent Australian National Audit Office audit into the cooperation program.

A breakdown of the $62.5m allocated to the program in 2001-02, an increase of $2.5m over the previous year, is shown in the table below. Explanations for variations in funding between 2000-01 and 2001-02 are given by individual country or activity in the pages which follow.

Table 2.5.1: Defence Cooperation Funding