There is a well-known rule in Australian defence-industry circles about how to represent one’s enterprise at public events. Listen carefully, take notes (well, not too conspicuously), but never stand up and ask a question once the speaker has concluded their presentation. That is a job best left for the journalists in the audience.

The reticence to expose one’s inner thoughts to public scrutiny is two-fold. Firstly, there is wisdom in not risking any display of deficiencies in your knowledge of important matters, especially in front of your peers. Secondly, in forming up a crafty question to unseat the speaker, it’s not a good career move to let slip something that your colleagues latterly consider as corporate sensitive, and therefore, potentially able to be used by your competitors against you.

And so it is with submissions to public inquiries – including the current 2015 Defence White Paper (DWP) Public Consultation – which had seen over 260 submissions acknowledged as having been lodged with the Expert Panel Secretariat at the time of writing.

Consistent with the government’s objective of staging a public consultation exercise, the vast number of submissions were received from private individuals. In succession, they variously addressed the full gamut of national security issues from the need to substantially boost Defence spending – right through to abolishing the military all together!

State governments traditionally have an interest in policy developments that contribute to concentrating military activities within their states. So along with relevant industry associations, they formed the next largest group of submissions, followed by a small number of defence companies with, arguably, the largest interest in seeing the emerging national security landscape better aligned with their own strategic priorities.

Contrary to the rules outlined above, however, some of these submissions went quite a long way in outlining a strategy intent on shaping the defence contracting environment in a manner designed to promote individual self gain. Certain other submissions in this vein also tested the Expert Panel Secretariat’s guidance that they might not be published if they contained excessive text considered as “commercial advertisements”.

After the above interests, the next largest group – close to 30 per cent of all submissions received – attached some form of ‘rider’ to the wider publication of their submission. The large majority (81 per cent) of these constituted individuals or groups that did not give consent for the content of their submission to be published. In some other cases, the Expert Panel Secretariat acknowledged the subject submission had been considered, but its content was nevertheless not made public.

Such a high percentage of withheld (from public scrutiny) submissions raises legitimate questions about the transparency of advice being put forward as part of the public consultation process, and indeed, its motivation. We are still a long way out in terms of the distillation of ideas into a hard copy 2015 DWP, so surely – at the end-of-October close-off of submissions – shouldn’t argument relating to the basic formation of the next DWP still have been able to be expressed in general (aka ‘non-sensitive’) terms?

Apparently not. An alternative hypothesis would suggest that views – given the recent history of successive cuts to defence expenditures – have already hardened in terms of the commercial risk of operating in the Australian national security environment – along with what will ultimately need to be reflected in the 2015 DWP script about new project and funding certainty. Perhaps those lodging confidential submissions already knew that, given their understanding the game had moved on from simply lodging submissions, to actively working government for answers on how it was going to accommodate emerging constraints across a broadly themed cost and risk management agenda.

Such is the mystery of a public consultation process that tolerates submissions of substance being made in-confidence – in effect, going some way towards defeating the purpose of the public consultation exercise – when a large number of organisations had also been extended the courtesy of conducting their own one-on-one meetings with the Expert Panel.

As estimates of the current year budget deficit headed towards $40 billion following the collapse of the spot price for iron ore and weak quarterly economic growth outcome, there was clear exasperation within government running up to Christmas about the prospect of any near-term return to surplus slipping from the government’s grasp. It would be unrealistic to think such outcomes will not have an effect on the scope and volume of the next Defence Capability Plan.

Those speaking directly to DWP influence groups were similarly acknowledging more publicly the gravity of the challenge first outlined by Defence Minister Johnston to align Defence policy with a clear military strategy in order to deliver a costed, affordable plan to achieve Australia’s defence and national security objectives.

For those readers whose organisations were not already working that prospect hard – in terms of directly promoting in the run-up to Christmas their concerns about the stability required in Defence expenditures to support new military capability acquisitions – it might now be worth considering a shorter holiday break than you were first contemplating.