Labor has wiped out funding for more than 5000 soldiers, sailors and aviators as a way to offset years of failure to meet recruitment targets, even as tensions with China rise and Donald Trump demands that US allies massively boost their defence budgets.
With the May election likely to take on a khaki-tinge, the budget papers reveal that defence spending will edge up 0.2 of a percentage point to 2.05 per cent of gross domestic product in 2025-26, falling just shy of $59 billion.
