Why is it always the taxpayer who has to pay for all the problems?
It is like looking away from the numbers and finding out, a minute later, that the cost of a project has increased by $1 billion.
Take the example of the 15 frigates, which have not even started to be built yet. Initially, the budget was $27 billion. Now the parliamentary budget officer puts the cost of the project at $77 billion, whereas the government's own figures put it between $50 billion and $60 billion. Construction has not even started yet and the figures have already exploded. At some point, someone somewhere is laughing at us.
Are you currently working with the industry more closely to find ways to avoid cost explosions, which taxpayers ultimately pay for? We're not even talking about inflation. With the current inflation, I imagine the numbers will go through the roof again.
How do we get defence procurement to be effective and within the cost estimates?