MEDIA RELEASE                    FRIDAY 20 JUNE 2008

Dick Smith offers $50,000 award

for investigative journalism

How Canberra lost $1 billion of our money

The Seasprite fiasco

Dick Smith said, “Earlier this year over $1 billion of taxpayers’ money vanished without a single question being asked when the Seasprite helicopter project was cancelled.

“Incredibly, no-one in the government nor the opposition seems to want answers.

“No-one in defence analysis, nor in the specialist defence media, nor in the general media, nor the schools of public administration, has asked the burning and obvious questions or penetrated the cone of silence that smothered the life out of any curiosity about the prolonged and absurdly wasteful saga of the Seasprites.

“This award is for the best and most detailed expose of exactly how Australia came to waste $1 billion on 11 decaying carcasses of a 1960s helicopter that the US couldn’t even give away for free to other countries as part of its 1990’s military aid package program,” said Dick Smith.

“What caused whom in which part of our defence hierarchy to place massive amounts of money into the hands of Kaman Aerospace, a name more known for electric guitars, and sign a contract that excluded the right to damages for non-performance yet specified the conversion of these relics into a helicopter with a suite of electronic systems that couldn’t be made to work.

“Why were a succession of defence ministers who were ‘unhappy’ with the project nevertheless unable to crack the defence establishment that is supposed to report to them under our Parliamentary system of government?

Dick Smith asks, “What persuaded the previous government to continue with the project even when the first test bed Seasprite (minus the systems) proved so dangerous to fly that the partially completed fleet was hidden from view in a hangar in Nowra and indefinitely grounded?

“Who are these people? Are they still there? What projects are they involved in today? Why wasn’t anyone held accountable for this calamity, or were these invisible bureaucrats given performance bonuses for their role in this disaster?

“Is it a code of behaviour within the Defence Department – and indeed the Public Service at large in Canberra – that those who run such projects do not seek advice nor any review by their peers as they move along the road to incredible waste?” asks Dick Smith.

“Does this in turn reflect a culture of insecurity, of concern that others will question their knowledge and undermine their tenure if they actually ask advice?

“$1 billion is serious money. It is an amount able to buy and do good things for this country. $1 billion gives us a completely rebuilt and re-equipped Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney.

Dick Smith said, “Yet not a whimper has escaped from the Government and Opposition. What sort of cosy relationship exists when the opposing sides of Parliament wave off detailed accountability for a project launched by the Keating government in 1994, signed into contracts for 2002 delivery by the Howard government in 1997 and cancelled with a brief press release early in 2008?

“Also to be looked at is how our Naval aviators have been let down with this disastrous and incompetent decision.

“The winning entry will answer these questions, but is not limited to them. Content and accuracy rather than style will be of the highest importance. It is open to journalists, to analysts, to academics, researchers, or to anyone who was there when all or most of these events occurred in the course of the project.

“It may be in written form or by documentary.  It must be published in some form so that the Australian public, who paid for this waste, know the full story.

Dick Smith said, “The winning entry must be factual and fair. The purpose is not to prosecute people for errors – unless corruption is involved – but to help prevent the same fiasco happening in the future, perhaps with the current commitment to the $16 billion JSF project.”

Dick Smith will choose the three independent judges, hopefully from names such as Eric Beecher, Paul Barry, Kerry O’Brien and Leigh Sales.

If the judges decide that no entry meets a high standard of investigative journalism, the cheque will be presented to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Entries close on12 December 2008.