$1.1m paid to Angus Houston, Stephen Smith, and Peter Dean for Defence Strategic Review

The three architects of Anthony Albanese’s Defence Strategic Review were paid almost $1.1m to prepare the federal government’s armed forces blueprint.

Former Labor defence minister Stephen Smith received $306,496. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

The three architects of Anthony Albanese’s Defence Strategic Review were paid almost $1.1m to prepare the federal government’s armed forces blueprint, guiding long-term defence spending and addressing capability gaps.

The DSR, announced by the Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles on August 3, will be released next month ahead of the May 9 budget.

An audit of Defence contracts reveals that the review’s independent authors, Angus Houston and Stephen Smith, and co-lead of the strategic review secretariat Peter Dean were engaged on seven-month contracts totalling $1.06m.

Sir Angus, a former Australian Defence Force chief, was paid $470,000, while Professor Smith, a former Labor defence minister who recently took up his post as Australia’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom, received $306,496. Professor Dean, the US Studies Centre foreign policy and defence director, was engaged on a $283,440 contract.

When the Defence strategic review was handed to Mr Albanese and Mr Marles on February 14, the former said it would “help prepare Australia to effectively respond to the changing regional and global strategic environment and ensure Defence’s capability and structure is fit for purpose and delivers the greatest return on investment”.

Mr Albanese on Thursday said the review looks at the “assets we need, where do we need them (and) what’s the timeframe for it”.

He said the $368bn AUKUS nuclear submarine program would “stand in its own right”.

“I’ve seen some comments, for example, about, you know, the NDIS has to be cut for this,” Mr Albanese said. “That’s not what this is about. What we have done here is, on its own merits, come up with the best way to defend our nation and put out there in a transparent way what the costs will be.”

The Albanese government has also engaged former Victorian Labor premier Steve Bracks on a $159,952 contract after he was appointed by Foreign Minister Penny Wong as Australia’s special representative on Greater Sunrise in October. The one-year Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade management advisory services contract ends on November 21.

Mr Bracks has been tasked with representing the commonwealth in consultations with the Timor-Leste government and other key stakeholders involved in the gas fields development, including the Sunrise Joint Venture.

The Australian this week revealed the Albanese government has announced at least 140 reviews, consultation papers, roundtables, summits and inquiries in less than 10 months.

The full costs of many of the reviews and inquiries, and those engaged to lead them, are not publicly available.

The royal commission into robo­debt, which has grilled former Morrison government ministers and senior bureaucrats in recent weeks, is expected to cost $30m.

A government spokeswoman this week defended the scale of the reviews and consultation papers as necessary to ensure a “thorough assessment of the mess we inherited”.

“We’re working hard to be straight with the Australian ­people who were let down by the previous government’s cover-ups and neglect,” she said.

Peter Dutton has accused the Albanese government of hitting “the ground reviewing”.

“Anthony Albanese had big promises: cheaper electricity, cheaper groceries, cheaper mortgages,” the Opposition Leader told The Australian.

“Instead of delivering these core promises, he’s delivered a ­record number of reviews and inquiries – something he ­explicitly criticised previous governments for doing.”