Khaki election: Dutton vows to buy more F-35s if Coalition wins office
A Coalition government would obtain an extra 28 F-35 joint strike fighters from the United States, Peter Dutton says, and boost the RAAF stealth jet fleet to 100.
Australia would get an extra 28 F-35 joint strike fighters under a Coalition government, with Peter Dutton vowing to boost the RAAF’s stealth jet fleet to 100 aircraft if he becomes prime minister after this year’s election.
In the first major defence commitment in what looms a khaki-tinged election race, the Opposition Leader pledged to reverse Labor’s decision not to proceed with a fourth squadron of F-35s.
The Coalition would provide an initial $3bn in additional Defence Department funding for the jets, with the aim of securing the first of the jets within five years.
“I will strengthen our Australian Defence Force with the funding and the capabilities they require to keep Australians safe and secure,” Mr Dutton said.
“Australia has long assessed the F-35A as the most capable fighter jet to meet Australia’s defence air power needs.
“This investment will bolster our air force and give it the ability to rapidly respond with flexible air combat options across large distances – enhancing access across the Indo-Pacific.”
He said Labor’s response to recent live-fire drills by Chinese warships off Australia’s coast had “clearly demonstrated the Prime Minister’s inability to stand up for Australia’s national interests”.
The pledge comes as the Trump administration piles pressure on the US’s allies to lift military spending – something both sides of Australian politics will have to grapple with in the coming election campaign.
The Coalition has declared it would spend more on defence than Labor, but is yet to provide any further details of the commitment.
Labor says it would increase the defence budget to “over 2.3 per cent” of GDP by 2033-34, after initially pledging to get it to 2.4 per cent.
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said with Saturday night’s announcement: “Despite repeatedly warning that Australia is facing the most strategic circumstances since the end of the Second World War, Labor has spent three years dithering and delaying.
“As an island nation in an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific region, it is essential that we are able to defend ourselves and protect our nation’s interests. Increasing our F-35 capability is an effective way we can do so.”
The RAAF has 72 F-35s, which the aircraft’s manufacturer Lockheed Martin bills as “the most lethal, survivable and connected fighter jet in the world”.
But Donald Trump’s close confidant Elon Musk has lashed the aircraft as “obsolete in the age of drones”, and an “expensive and complex Jack of all trades, master of none”.
The Albanese government axed plans to purchase a fourth squadron of F-35s for at least a decade as part of a $72bn cost-cutting exercise last year to find money for the AUKUS submarine program and new warships and missiles.
It said the aircraft weren’t needed because it had decided to keep the RAAF’s workhorse F/A-18F Super Hornets in service longer than originally planned.
The move followed an earlier $7.8bn worth of cuts to planned procurements, for a total of $80bn in defence budget “reprioritisations” during the Labor government’s first term.
Labor argues the Coalition underfunded Defence by $42bn by “over-programming” the department’s budget by up to 40 per cent.
“That means that for every $100 Defence had to spend it was planning to spend $140. Or in other words, more than a quarter of what Defence had planned to buy or deliver, it had no money for,” Defence Minister Richard Marles said last year.
A federal poll must be held by May 17, but speculation is mounting that Anthony Albanese could pull the election trigger within days for an April 5 or April 12 election.
Labor has been on the backfoot over its handling of the Defence portfolio after it emerged the ADF learned of a live-fire drill by Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea 40 minutes after the exercise window opened thanks to a warning relayed by a Virgin Australia pilot.
New Zealand passed on a second warning 50 minutes later from one of its frigates that Australia was relying on to monitor the Chinese vessels.
The revelations, from Defence officials, contradicted Mr Albanese, who had said China provided notice of the drill “in accordance with practice”, and the two warnings came through “at about the same time”.
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