In the year that I came to the Defence Department, the Defence Group’s 1970–71 budget was responsible for 14 per cent of total Commonwealth expenditure, and was estimated to be 3.6 per cent of the Gross National Product. Much of this was attributed to our operational expenditure in respect of Vietnam. As I was later to discover, other requirements were neglected. The number of civilian staff, mostly dedicated to activities in the Service commands, was very large. The Defence Group’s activities were widely dispersed geographically. They required the services of a wide range of professional personnel in shipbuilding; aircraft and arms and stores production; scientific research and its application to the repair and the modification of equipment to unique Australian climatic and other conditions; health services; and much more. There were establishments for education, and others for training in the advanced technologies employed in weapon controls and the sensors needed for all environments. The range of activities sustained by the Defence vote was a microcosm of Commonwealth Government administration across the board, as well as of much within the province of State administrations. Relations with allies had to be fostered and disagreement negotiated away. Important intelligence-gathering systems and analyses of the product had to be managed.

I had to remedy my lack of knowledge of the way each Service managed itself, and of the operational requirements that lay behind each Service’s submissions to Defence for financial approvals. In the equipment area each Service had its own philosophies, based on accumulated experience in combat, on such matters as survivability in conflict, life in service, acceptable rate of obsolescence, and maintainability under Australian conditions. Those conditions included the physical environment (such as the hot wet and hot dry climate), paucity of ports, distance from bases, as well as the country’s industrial capability to meet requirements or to modify equipment without dependence on distant countries of origin.