‘I’m also very confident in terms of the methodologies that have been developed and refined over the course of many of these projects and I’m very confident in the fidelity of the data that we have.’
— Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds, Supplementary budget estimates hearings, 29 November 2019
By Rob Bourke*
The October and November 2019 Senate estimates hearings for the Department of Defence followed a familiar pattern: extended discussion about the number of Australian jobs associated with projects for building and sustaining naval vessels and an outcome that did little to clarify many, or even most, of the numbers involved.
