Citizens seeking government money for
good causes should learn a lesson from yesterday’s $1.3 million pledge
by John Howard to search for HMAS Sydney – it pays to have powerful
patrons.

Yesterday’s announcement can be marked down to the
efforts of the patron of the HMAS Sydney Foundation, former deputy
prime minister Tim Fischer, who has enthusiastically pushed for this
since a Senate inquiry seven years ago into the wartime incident
concluded that the fate of the Sydney and her crew was “unknown” and
“unknowable.”

Fischer’s efforts are in the best traditions of
National Party pork barrelling – in this case, for a community-spirited
cause. There was a hitch, however, in yesterday’s announcement, as it
seems someone in the PM’s Department doesn’t know the difference
between a big ship – and a very big ship.

In announcing the search, the PM inadvertently “up-gunned” the HMAS Sydney to a battle cruiser. Sydney was, in fact, a light cruiser. Crikey’s military consultant, John Griffiths, advises us that a battle cruiser (of which the first HMAS Australia was our first and only) was a capital ship which would form the core of a fleet.

A light cruiser
is a less significant fleet unit. Perhaps this simple distinction was
“unknown” or “unknowable” in the PM’s Department. What’s more, the ship
was not named “Sydney II,” as someone in the PM’s office seems to
think. While Sky News, among others, repeated the mistakes in their
coverage of the story, experienced defence hands like News Ltd’s Ian McPhedran didn’t fall for either error. Someone should be getting a light rap over the knuckles today.