Coalition defence spending pledge ‘plucked out of air’: Butler
A senior minister has defended Labor’s military spending and slammed the Coalition’s election pledge to boost the defence budget to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 as “plucked out of air”.
With the Trump White House’s “America First” agenda casting doubt on the US’ commitment to global security, many of Washington’s closest allies – including Australia – have been scrambling to bolster their defences.
The Coalition has accused the Albanese government of dropping the ball on defence, despite tens of billions going into expanding the country’s defensive and offensive capabilities.
Health Minister Mark Butler said on Sunday that Labor was rolling out “the biggest expansion of defence spending in a peacetime period since World War II”.
“A $10bn extra in the forward estimates, $50bn over the next 10 years,” he told the ABC.
“Every dollar accounted for in the budget, and every dollar paying for a capability identified in the Independent Defence Strategic Review.
“It’s very different to what you got this week from Peter Dutton, a figure plucked out of air with no indication about where the money is coming from, let alone what it will buy.”
Defence has emerged as a key issue in the election campaign after reports emerged that Russia had approached Indonesia with a request to use a military base in the province of Papua.
Peter Dutton admitted he made “a mistake” by falsely saying Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced the request, opening the Opposition Leader up to criticism of his grasp of defence and foreign affairs.
The Russian request came fewer than two months after Chinese warships circumnavigated Australia, sparking alarm from China hawks calling for a tougher measures to counter Beijing’s growing aggression in the Indo-Pacific.
Earlier, Coalition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said Australia could be caught “with our pants down” if more money was not spent on the military.
“We need to invest in AUKUS, but we’ve also got to work out how, as a nation of 27 million people, with a vast continent, that we can defend ourselves,” Mr Hastie told Sky News.
“We’re not going to get caught with our pants down if the strategic environment changes and we find ourselves in a crisis.”
The Coalition’s spending pledge would translate into some extra $21bn over the next five years.
Mr Butler said the Albanese government was open to spending more if needed.
“We recognise we’re in a very volatile, uncertain global environment and defence indicates that more assets are needed,” he said.
“Of course, we would look at that through a future budget process.”