Australia needs to create the role of a defence production tsar who would wield “procurement superpowers” to urgently buy and build new weapons for the military, with the risk of conflict with China by 2030 rising to 20 per cent, former top security bureaucrat Michael Pezzullo warns.

Mr Pezzullo, the former head of the Home Affairs Department, also challenged political leaders to confront the Chinese Communist Party, lashing Beijing’s soft power “panda diplomacy” that defined Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s Australian visit last week.