BY CHRISTOPHER HEALEY
It was the news that broke the nation.
In a shocking exposé of the Australian Department of Defence, the Sydney Morning Herald’s crack team of investigative journalists revealed that the DoD has spent some $2.3 million since 2015 in a reckless spending spree.
What did they acquire for that money?
Not a single gun, bullet, explosive artillery round, or #2 buzz cut.
The money was instead used to invest in a radical, new kind of cutting-edge technology currently being trialled that, according to my source at the DoD, doesn’t even kill people.
“The likelihood that these new Instruments of Warfare will result in anyone’s death is exceedingly small,” I was informed in a phone conversation with a higher-up in the DoD’s budgeting department, who wished to remain nameless.
“One can never rule out accidents — anything can happen in the heat of battle — but they are designed to be safe and to incapacitate the enemy through less-fatal means.”
The spending signals an unprecedented shift in defence strategy, and highlights a growing move towards what the DoD is calling “peaceful warfare”.
But what is this revolutionary technology eliciting such an angry response from the Australian public?
According to SMH, this funding has been spent on unheard-of projectiles, including handmade, high-grade silver tubes with complex arrays of mysterious buttons and levers. Further purchases apparently included large tartan bags with strange assemblies of wooden protuberances.
My DoD contact informed me also that these new instruments have yet to be given proper military names, but they are planning to open the naming up to public vote. He must have read my mind, however, for he quickly added: “Don’t worry, it wont be like that Ferry McFerry Face debacle.”
Some of the confusion appears to be that, to a lay person, these new weapons in question look strangely like musical instruments.
SMH observed that one such form of instrument suspiciously resembling a flute was not only handmade, but cost extravagant sums around $25,000 dollars each. As I hadn’t yet been able to determine the functionality of these new objects, I was inclined to think that the flute-like object was, in fact, a flute.
However, according to a professional flautist friend of mine, it’s simply too cheap to be a professional flute. She went on to explain that that her flute costs twice as much as her car, and that $25,000 for a hand-made flute was practically entry-level for a professional flautist in an orchestra.
Some further digging revealed that these new instruments of “peaceful warfare” clearly aren’t what they look like, for a handmade flute can cost more than $100,000AUD.
More scandalous, however, is that according to SMH, the Defence Forces only currently have 300 people trained on this new equipment, meaning that a staggering $10,000 has been effectively spent per person. Although, I have been further assured that these instruments will be able to be reused by other people in the future, making it a sound long-term investment.
However, before we prepare to riot at the absurdity of the DoD’s new initiative, it is worth considering that currently, Australia’s military spending is $34.6 billion (that is: $34,600,000,000) per year, meaning that this new R&D expenditure is only ~0.0066 per cent of the yearly budget. (Actually, as this spending has been in progress since 2015, this figure needs to be averaged, making it even less than 0.0066 per cent.)
From this light, one is forced to appreciate precisely how fiscally conservative this new investment is, compared to the $119.5 million Australia is currently spending on each new F-35 stealth plane.
For those still upset by this new form of spending, however, a protest rally is being held on the lawns of Canberra’s Parliament House this coming Saturday.
Depending on the number in attendance, the Defence Force is considering a demonstration so that the Australian public can judge for itself how effectively spent was the tax-payer’s money.
According to my DoD contact, there is even a technical military term for this kind of event:
A Concert.
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This was a slice of satire, folks – so take it with a grain of salt. However, the figures are real: check out the original news story here.
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Images: flute by The Last Cookie, CC-BY-2.0; Trombone by Olek Remesz, CC-BY-SA-2.0; Royal Australian Navy Band performance by Marion Doss, CC-BY-SA-2.0.
