Albanese government slammed for ‘totally unacceptable’ lack of new spending as part of Defence Strategic Review

No extra money will be committed for at least another four years to implement the recommendations of a landmark Defence Strategic Review. Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings has slammed it as “totally unacceptable”.

Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings.

No extra money will be committed for at least another four years to implement the recommendations of a landmark Defence Strategic Review that calls for a more agile defence force with greater long-range strike capabilities.

Defence experts criticised the lack of new spending, with Strategic Analysis Australia director Peter Jennings labelling it “totally unacceptable”.

Mr Jennings said that “at the very least, we should have seen a commitment to get us to 3 per cent of GDP probably this decade and certainly starting right now”.

While any increase in military spending has been delayed beyond the budget’s forward estimates period, Defence Minister Richard Marles provided an assurance this would be the last time the government could take such an approach.

“It is absolutely our expectation that defence spending over the medium term, over the decade, will grow above the existing trajectory of growth that we inherited from the former government,” he said.

The Defence Strategic Review and the government have not nominated a percentage of GDP to which defence spending would need to rise, with the 110-page review stating that investments should be reprioritised “while maintaining the overall level of Defence funding over the forward estimates”.

Mr Jennings said this was the most important sentence in the review. He argued that, if the current strategic environment could not “motivate this government to spend on defence now, then nothing ever will beyond the start of a conflict”.

The government has agreed to reprioritise projects in the Integrated Investment Program which sets out defence spending plans in order to implement the recommendations in the DSR.

Mr Marles said the DSR would cost “around $19bn” over the ­forward estimates to cover the ­implementation of six key priorities – an investment in ­nuclear submarines; the development of a long-range strike capability; an improved ability for the ADF to operate out of Australia’s northern bases; the transformation of disruptive new technologies into ADF capabilities; the growth of ADF recruitment and retention; and improved defence co-operation with regional partners.

Of the $19bn required to implement the six priority areas, $11bn is already provisioned for within the IIP while another $7.8bn in projects will need to be reprioritised, delayed or scrapped.

The government on Monday provided a list of 33 unclassified defence projects that would be reprioritised, delayed or scrapped including changes to a number of barracks refits and redevelopment programs. A planned arms museum at the Puckapunyal army training facility in Victoria has also been scrapped.

But the government has opted to make key capability changes. Australia will downsize its land combat vehicle system acquisition. Australia will cut its order from 450 to 129 vehicles – a decision which will provide for only one mechanised battalion for “littoral manoeuvre, including training, repair and attrition stock”.

Labor has also opted to scrap the acquisition by the army of a second regiment of self-propelled howitzers, with the DSR arguing that the systems did not provide the “required range of lethality”.

A key program to develop a maritime unmanned aerial system will also be reprioritised.

Australian Strategic Policy ­Institute executive director Justin Bassi said defence spending would rise over the medium and warned failure on this score would come with terrible consequences.

“A lift in spending is crucial,” Mr Bassi said. “We need only look at Russia’s war on Ukraine to see that under-investment in defence leads not to ongoing peace and stability but to reduced deterrence, which inevitably costs far more in both economic and social terms down the track.”

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the government was delaying the hard decisions.

“We won’t see any new money,” he said. “We see the government funding the DSR recommendations through offsets (and) cannibalising capability.”

Former Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon said it was important the government spend defence money “better and smarter before going back to the taxpayer for more”, but praised the DSR as a “quality document”. “It’s a high-level plan and its impact will rest with the quality of its implementation,” he said. “Therein always lies the very big challenge.”