An apt metaphor for the Department of Defence in Labor’s second term might be the Titanic. The good ship “defence” has hit an iceberg: the senior officers are reassuring all is fine, the band is playing and the crew are busy. But the ship is gradually sinking.
The iceberg is the $A368 billion AUKUS nuclear submarine project. The scale of the program in terms of money, time and workforce is progressively damaging the rest of the defence portfolio. AUKUS is now so large it is seen as a fourth service, alongside the navy, army and air force.
