By Marcus Hellyer*
The Labor government’s election platform contained a commitment to conduct a ‘defence force posture review’. Historically, Australia’s defence posture reviews have mainly considered where Australian Defence Force assets are based. Different stakeholders have inconsistent goals: the Department of Defence wants to consolidate in fewer, larger bases to save money; regional towns want to hang on to what they have; and boosters in the north and west push for more ADF assets to be at the ‘pointy end’ in — no prizes for guessing — the north and west.
