Coalition the only ones getting serious about defence

For its wilful neglect of defence and all aspects of national security, the ALP deserves to lose this election on this issue alone, as Greg Sheridan maintains (“Too little too late: no defence for this”, 24/4). Peter Dutton’s proposal front-ends a dramatic increase of defence spending, while Labor continues to back-end it into the following decades. But Sheridan and Peter Dean share the frustration that Dutton is confining his proposal to funding, without any details on how the funds would be spent (“Sure, there’s some unity on defence, but we need a real strategy”, 24/4). We still haven’t seen any sign of the acquisition of the guided missiles prioritised in the Defence Strategic Review, of which Dean was a co-author. Drones have been particularly effective in the Ukraine war, yet are not available to the ADF, although they are currently manufactured onshore. There is also no mention of our rundown stocks of artillery rounds and ammunition, nor the deliberate slowdown of recruiting under the Albanese government, so that it can take applicants 300 days to get into uniform. If the Coalition wanted to get some traction from this issue, they would have highlighted the urgency of addressing the national security threats which Labor continues to ignore.

John Morrissey, Hawthorn, Vic

You can hardly blame Peter Dutton for delaying the Coalition’s plans for defence, when the nation’s finances are in such dire straits as a result of Labor’s mismanagement (“Defence budget increase is real unavoidable spending”, 24/4). As Dutton knows, the only chance the nation has in getting to a 3 per cent of GDP defence commitment is to grow the economic pie from private sector-led investment. This is not possible under Labor, which has the economy barely growing at around 1.4 per cent annually, as major wealth-generating projects keep on being banned or delayed, for all sorts of strange, ideological reasons.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

I’ve been compelled to call out flaws in Peter Dean’s pronouncements before. On Australia’s future frigate acquisition, Dean implies we should choose the Japanese Mogami class frigate because it “… is a more modern design with twice as many Vertical Launch System missile tubes as its competitor and with more advanced VLS capabilities”.

He goes on to conclude that we should choose it because of its missiles and we can decide more quickly. Further, we should build them overseas because we can save cost and time – but if we’re careful this need not impact local industry or jobs.

How do you propose we might do that in all practicality? More important than Australian jobs is the establishment of an Australian-based supply chain to keep the ships operational.

Dean seems not to understand why continuous naval shipbuilding in Australia – by Australians, using Australian industry – has been bipartisan policy throughout this century. And a sound policy at that, albeit not well executed.

Furthermore, Mogami has a very small crew so it will not be spending much time at sea, which is fine for Japan. Their navy’s vital sea areas are about one tenth the size of Australia’s. Endurance is about people, and it matters much more to us.

Rowan Moffitt, Rear Admiral, RAN (retired), Canberra, ACT

A clear majority of Australians (66 per cent, according to two surveys in 2023) favour Australia remaining neutral in the event of a war between the US and China. Given the uncertainty produced by Trump 2.0 and the rise in geopolitical stress, this percentage is likely to be higher in 2025. While a significant increase in defence spending will be popular with most contributors and readers of The Australian, it is unlikely to be with a significant percentage of the electorate, especially women and young adults.

The Coalition defence policy is a statement of intent rather than a detailed policy. It also appears at a late stage in this campaign. The public realises its going to provide the additional cost of $21bn either directly (taxation) or indirectly.

Given the ongoing failure of defence decisions over the past 15 years, it is difficult to have confidence that the political process involved will improve. Australia needs a strategic defensive approach integrating large numbers of missiles, drones and uncrewed maritime vessels with a sensor network linked to a command-control targeting system.

Andrew Whyte, Mt Martha, Vic