Good Luck, Senator Hill

Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill recently announced his retirement from the government and is expected to be appointed Australia's next Ambassador to the UN. This blog wishes him well in his new career as our Ambassador to the usless, corrupt and positively malign of the world, and notes with interest this article in today's Weekend Australian:

He has, slowly but methodically and comprehensively, turned the defence doctrine established under Beazley and unchallenged until Hill's tenure, on its head, cementing a new paradigm of forward engagement for the Australian Defence Force.

He has also secured massive new resources for Defence, a commitment to a real increase of 3 per cent a year for all of this decade, a commitment that John Howard foreshadowed in December would be pushed out until at least 2015.

Hill towers over Howard's other defence ministers, the inconsequential Ian McLachlan, the bumbling John Moore, and Peter Reith, who, though a capable politician, made his chief mark in defence in the children overboard fiasco.

Hill has, according to Sheridan, been instrumental in saving Defence from one of the most foolish policy fads of the 1980s and 1990s:

One of his most important achievements was in breaking the straitjacket of the Beazley-era defence of Australia doctrine. This held that the ADF should be structured purely for the defence of Australia, and that this structure would allow some flexibility for token commitments abroad.

One of the many debilitating consequences of this doctrine was a shocking neglect of the army, even though it was the army that was continually deployed abroad. The crippled nature of the army was evident in East Timor, where cobbling together a force of only 5000 soldiers almost stretched the ADF to breaking point.

Hill's philosophy of defence was evident in the main equipment decisions on his watch. The turning point was the purchase of 59 Abrams main battle tanks for the army. But similarly the commitment to two huge amphibious ships to transport the troops and three air warfare destroyers to protect them from missile and air attack while they are being transported, also gave effect to Hill's strategic doctrine.

Over the years, Hill became more confident in rejecting the old paradigm, commenting that the sea-air gap to our north was not a moat behind which Australia sheltered but a highway down which we travelled.

One of Labor leader Kim Beazely's most commonly-cited positive traits is his "credibility" on defence matters. One suspects that this is only because he liked being photographed with millitary hardware and talking about the American Civil War.

Thank you, Senator Hill, and good luck for the future.