The Government plans to retain and build on the Army structures created in haste in the lead-up to the Timor intervention. Under the plan, Australia will have a permanent capacity to sustain a brigade on active service, allowing for regular rotations, while a battalion of 1,000 troops is deployed elsewhere. This is not improbable. It means maintaining six battalions at high readiness indefinitely, plus the Special Operations force. As for those expensive, high-tech aircraft, warships and missiles, the white paper argues persuasively that an increasing number of regional powers have also been investing heavily in them.
Australian warships have inadequate defences against air attack.
There is room for argument about specific decisions, like cutting back the initial order for early warning and control aircraft from seven to four. Community, self It required a certain fortitude to speak out against such television programs as Ally McBeal and Sex and the City as the headmistress of the Anglican girls' school Abbotsleigh, Mrs Judith Wheeldon, did on Tuesday. But to cast criticism in such frankly moral terms, as Mrs Wheeldon did, was to risk ridicule for being old-fashioned, out of touch, or too censorious about what is, after all, mere entertainment. Mrs Wheeldon criticised such television programs in a broad examination of the loss of sense of community and the decline in community service. She urged parents to see these programs, which could not be dismissed as harmless entertainment.