Super Seasprites – who is responsible?

[Dick Smith]

I am fascinated (as I think many others are) about the Super Seasprite debacle, where over $1 billion of taxpayers’ money has been written off.

What interests me more than anything else is how journalists have not mentioned who is responsible. Was it a committee that actually made the decision, or was it an individual? Who was the Chief of Defence at the time the decision was made? Was this person considered a capable person and was he misled? Who was the responsible Minister at the time?

I would imagine one of the prime reasons that the mistake was made was because those in decision making positions did not ask for advice from people who had expertise - i.e. if they had asked if it was sensible to purchase helicopters which relied on 30 year old airframes that were sitting in the Arizona Desert, they may have made a different decision.

The most important issue is not to make the mistake again, however I can see it being repeated – probably with the Joint Strike Fighter.

I will look forward to some of the more knowledgeable posters on PPRuNe advising on why they believe this error was made, and if they believe anything was learnt from it. After all, $1 billion is a lot of money that could have been used effectively somewhere else. I would imagine that most of the money ended up in the United States, which is already the wealthiest country in the world.