Bradley Perrett | Withholding Hawkeis and Bushmasters from Ukraine is a disgrace

The government should mostly empty the army of Hawkei armoured trucks, keeping just enough for training, and send the rest to Ukraine. It should also send more Bushmasters.

How embarrassing it is that we have a factory at Bendigo that can make vehicles that Ukraine says it needs and yet the government this week said it would instead send what has rightly been called old junk. That includes 28 M113 armoured personnel carriers that date back to the Vietnam War.

The Ukrainians, having asked for Hawkeis and additional Bushmasters, have politely expressed gratitude for our measly offering, but I wonder what they're really thinking.

Hawkeis are remarkable vehicles we've ordered to partly replace Land Rover light trucks. Vehicles like Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons, also bought to replace them, are not much more than solidly built utes that can be ripped into by small arms fire or artillery shrapnel.

Hawkeis, on the other hand, are armoured to protect their occupants. They weigh 10 tonnes when loaded. Bushmasters are similar but bigger.

Imagine Hawkeis bashing through the bush on a reconnaissance mission or maybe rushing forward to reinforce a position, each vehicle depositing five soldiers. The two-door version has a larger cargo tray for weapons, ammunition and other supplies.

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It's not hard to see why Ukraine wants them, even though it knows that the antilock brakes aren't working properly.

Our army wants them, too, but doesn't have to get all it needs right now. It's still in the process of introducing the model, so delivery delays would not be very disruptive. The delays wouldn't even be long.

The local subsidiary of French company Thales designed the Hawkei and built 1100 of the vehicles in Bendigo, finishing production last year. The army has issued 389 to its units.

Note that the production program was set up to build about 50 a month, and Thales achieved at least 10 a week.

Suppose we gave 800 to Ukraine, making a splendid contribution. That would compare with 90 Bushmasters that we have sent.

The Australian Army could use its remaining 300 Hawkeis for training and to equip units it needed to deploy on any operation that arose. For a while longer it would have to rely more heavily on thin-skinned vehicles, which it has been doing anyway.

No, that would not be ideal, but we must exert ourselves. This country isn't facing an existential crisis. It must do more to help one that is.

The government could declare that in sending 800 Hawkeis and, say, 200 Bushmasters to Ukraine it understood it was leaving the Australian Army less well equipped than planned. So deployments of the army would be strictly limited for a while.

Its equipment level should still be enough for so-called stabilisation missions - for example, peacekeeping in a Pacific island country - which we must always be ready for. But going back to the Middle East would be a no-no.

Then we would need to build replacement vehicles. Thales has the Bushmaster in production, and it must still have the equipment for making Hawkeis, though it would need to rebuild its workforce. My guess is that it could get back to full rate Hawkei output in about a year and deliver the 800 replacements within two years of throwing the switch.

Actually, we should do more. Ukraine's desperate need for help is an occasion for Australia to see how well its defence department, army and arms industry can respond to a call for crash war production. That's the sort of thing that we have not done in many decades - the sort of thing we would need to do with various weapon types if a war with China erupted.

Thales evidently knows a thing or two about building Hawkeis quickly, but how fast could it go? If it shot past 50 a month, we could send more to Ukraine.

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Not all of a Hawkei can be made here. Some parts must be imported. But that's part of the puzzle of crash production: securing components, finding substitutes and, above all, getting officials to approve work-arounds rather than declaring that it just can't be done, or can't be done in less than 10 years.

The deep suspicion is that our military establishment in Canberra is culturally incapable of doing anything fast, let alone suddenly moving heaven and earth to do something in a tearing hurry. So let's see.

If it fails, we will have learned the valuable lesson that reforms are needed.

This would not come for free - each Hawkei costs something like $1 million - but even $2 billion would be well worth spending on helping Ukraine.

There would be a few other benefits in handing over Hawkeis. Assuming they performed as well as Ukraine seems to think they can, we would have promoted a product for export.

To the extent that the design has unknown shortcomings, operation in an intense war would surely uncover them, greatly benefiting of our own army.

We could also expect Ukraine to give us a full rundown on exactly how the Hawkei can best be used - or in what circumstances it shouldn't be used. Such information would be invaluable in saving the lives of our own people if they had to ride Hawkeis into combat.

The decision to withhold Hawkeis from Ukraine looks like yet another example of inertia in a defence establishment that is good at saying things can't be done. For a country like ours, under rising strategic pressure, that attitude must change.