In 2008, the Mortimer review143 considered the reforms that followed Kinnaird to both assess whether they had fully achieved the desired outcomes and to develop new proposals. The Mortimer review (2008) identified five principal areas of concern:
• Inadequate project management resources in the CDG;
• The inefficiency of the process leading to government approvals for new projects;
• Shortages in DMO personnel;
• Delays due to inadequate industry capacity; and
• Difficulties in the introduction of equipment into full service.
Mortimer made 46 recommendations to address these issues. In terms of capability planning, these included increasing the rigour with which projects are assessed for entry into the DCP and streaming of the standard 'two-pass' process, with responsibility for simpler acquisitions delegated and bypassing the first stage once capability requirement is agreed. For capability acquisition, the upweighting of importance of Capability Managers within CDG and greater alignment of contracting with commercial practice were recommended. Mortimer also recommended that it should be mandated that the Chief Executive Officer of DMO must have significant private sector and commercial experience and that General Manager -Commercial position should be created to deal with strategic commercial issues.
Further to this, the Australian Department of Defence published a strategic defence white paper in May 2009144, its first since 2000. It sets out the strategic defence policy goals and derives broad capability priorities, informed by a force structure review. The Government also committed to funding to the defence white paper until 2030145:
• 5.5% nominal growth in defence budget to 2017-18; and
• 4.7% nominal growth in defence budget from 2018-19 to 2030.
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143 Defence Procurement and Sustainment Review, D. Mortimer (Sep 2008)
144 Defending Australia in the Asia Pacific Century: Force 2030 (May 2009)
145 Excluding the net costs of major overseas operations