Risky business

That Defence needs the best possible capabilities to successfully defend Australia and its interests at home and abroad is unquestionable. That this is currently being delivered with the current and planned hardware is a little harder to quantify.

Sure, acquisitions such as the recently arrived C-17 in its bog stock, off-the-shelf, and well-proven USAF configuration appear to have been done in a timely and efficient way, adding a huge capability leap with the only real pain being the $2 billion hip pocket jolt.