Last week saw the release of both the National Defence Strategy and the associated Integrated Investment Plan. Rather than squabbling over the amount – there is a genuine, if small, increase in funding – people should be asking how much additional capability will this buy. The answer is, probably not enough, though more on drones is undoubtedly a good thing.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Defence Minister Richard Marles proved again how out of touch he is by claiming that the US is still a dependable ally and that the international rules based order is still in place when clearly it is not. People can see this daily with their own eyes.
He also repeated the falsehood that the government is spending record amounts on Defence. This is untrue. We are currently at 2.08% of GDP. In 1981-82 the fraction of GDP was 2.4% rising to 2.6% three years later. During the Vietnam War it was over 3%.
Can people please start holding Ministers to account for this absolute, provable, factually incorrect nonsense?
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Under the previous GDP calculation 2% moving 2.33% by 2034 an increase of 16.5%,with the new measure calling 2% now 2.8% and moving to 3% by 2036 is an increase of only 6.85%, so therefore a cut disguised as an increase.
Australia’s greatest strategic shield is not its relationship with the United States. It is the fact that Australia is the world’s largest global exporter of LNG, coal and iron ore; second largest exporter of grain and beef; largest undeveloped critical minerals deposits in the world.
Marles’s construct of ‘projected lethality’ is something that we can neither afford, deploy nor sustain. We simply can’t afford to continue with AUKUS when it is starving a defence force that we actually need.
I believe that Australia’s capability focus should be on (1) regional cooperation in maintaining open and safe navigational zones across South East Asia and the Southern Pacific; (2) denial of the air-sea gap into the northern archipelagos and; (3) the protection of littoral economic infrastructure.
Couldn’t agree more.
Hi Kym, I avoided listening for a few days, as your thoughts align with mine, and wanted to be happy for a couple more days. Initially I was happy that they actually did do a new NDS. However, all talk (sound byte), no detail on anything, blatant lies/ misdirection. Anti mine warfare is still unclear, but at least they finally mentioned it. As I (and Jennifer Parker) have many times mentioned, the disconnect between public rhetoric (worst strategic situation ever) Vs actually accelerating defence projects (double shift construction of Hunter class immediately) is so depressing and so wrong to come from a defence minister, that keep’s talking about sovereign capability, but not independent sovereignty.