Former top bureaucrat Mike Pezullo says country gravely unprepared for conflict with China

The nation’s former top bureaucrat says Australia has lost 15 years by dithering on defence when it should have been investing heavily to meet the challenge of a rising China.

Defence expert and former chief of the Department of Home Affairs Mike Pezullo. Picture: Martin Ollman

The nation’s former top bureaucrat has called for the largest increase in defence spending in a generation, warning Australia now faces “looming peril” because it has failed to build a military capable of meeting the challenge of a rising China.

Mike Pezzullo, the former longtime Department of Home Affairs and secretary and principal author of the 2009 defence white paper, says Australia has lost 15 years by dithering on defence when it should have been investing heavily to beef up the ADF in the face of China’s unprecedented military build-up.

Speaking ahead of next week’s federal budget, Mr Pezzullo says the only remedy for our future security is a historic surge in defence spending from the current 2 per cent of GDP to “at least 3 per cent”. This is well above the Albanese government’s current plan to lift defence spending to just 2.4 per cent over the next 10 years.

“Australia’s security dilemma is now acute,” he told The Weekend Australian. “Faced with the credible prospect of the jaws of war leaping violently at us during this decade, we are going to need a bigger force. Without this, Australia would be hard pressed to defend itself in a major war without a substantial degree of force augmentation from the US.”

Mr Pezzullo said Australia was now less self-reliant in defence than it has been for the past 40 years and that without US help China would likely defeat Australia in a major war, ending in “national subjugation”.

“If a well-armed major power, unchecked by the US, were to decide that access to our resources or land or both would be in its interests, we would not necessarily have the strategic, economic, demographic and military means to preserve our sovereignty or stave off national subjugation,” he said.

Mr Pezzullo said Australia has lost 15 years by not implementing the promises of the 2009 white paper, which called for doubling of the conventional submarine fleet from six to 12 and a new fleet of eight frigates and new patrol boats.

Mike Pezzullo said Australia had lost 15 years by not implementing the promises of the 2009 white paper, which called for doubling of the conventional submarine fleet. Picture: Lieutenant Chris Prescott

“Force expansion should have occurred over 15 years, as warning time counted down,” he said. “Instead the force remains configured for what was termed 40 years ago ‘escalated low-level conflict’.”

He said that in order to have the force needed for more “substantial conflict” defence spending over the past 15 years should have been lifted steadily to at least 3 per cent of GDP instead of languishing at just 2 per cent. “We spent more at times during the Cold War, without being seriously threatened by major conventional attack,” Mr Pezzullo said.

He said such a major increase in defence spending now would be “fiscally daunting” and would impact competing budget demands.

“But the difference with other areas of spending is that structural underfunding in defence could one day lead to military defeat, and national peril as a result,” he said.

Mr Pezzullo called for a range of immediate measures to prepare for any future conflict with China. These included regular strategic updates to the National Security Committee on the warning signs and prospects of war, a review of all plans to quickly activate ADF bases and air bases in the country’s north and mobilisation plans for the ADF covering logistics, war stocks and fuel supplies.

His comments come ahead of next week’s federal budget, which is expected to reveal a $5.7bn increase in defence spending over the next four years. However, the government has promised to lift it by $50.3bn over the next 10 years, which it says will see it rise as a proportion of GDP from 2 per cent to 2.4 per cent.