Chinese Uniforms for Our Troops?

In the course of this year we are increasingly learning about waste and cost blow-outs in Federal Government programs across many departments, one notable example being the dodgy installation of batts under the multi-billion dollar Home Insulation Program.

However in the midst of this climate of Government profligacy, it was astonishing to learn that Australian soldiers might have been wearing combat uniforms made from fabric sourced from China in order to save money.

The Disruptive Pattern Camouflage Uniforms – known as DPCU – is a high-tech fabric largely developed in Australia by organisations including the Defence Science and Technology Organisation. 

Recently, we learned that a tender to provide 120,000 uniforms over two years would have included an option of fabric being provided from China.  For this $13.6 million tender, there would have been a saving of $1.5 million, or about ten percent, to have the material for uniforms sourced from overseas.

It is hardly in our in our national interest to provide this intellectual property to a foreign manufacturer, who also supplies third parties, simply to save money.

The Government has since back-flipped, and the option for the material to come from China will not be exercised, but the tender should not have been accepted in the first place and it should never have been considered.

All Government Departments are expected and should be encouraged to provide taxpayers value for money. However, this is not about Defence legitimately trying to make savings, this is about scrimping on uniforms for our military, the risk to our manufacturing industries, and potentially sending jobs overseas.

At a time when billions are being spent and sometimes wasted on program blow-outs and over-runs, it says much about the Government’s priorities that our nation’s intellectual property, the material used in our soldiers’ uniforms, could have possibly been sourced from China. Any saving would have been a false economy. 

I strongly believe our defence industries must not be put under pressure like this to pay back debt for profligate spending. Please feel free to pass on your thoughts to me about this at alex.hawke.mp@aph.gov.au