A Note from the Editor
Readers should be warned that this piece pays deliberate homage to Evelyn Waugh’s exquisitely appropriate fondness for long, winding sentences and his unrivalled capacity to report the facts with deadpan solemnity when our top brass parody themselves most enthusiastically. As Napoleon is said to have observed, one should never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake; here, the Defence Minister has been left entirely uninterrupted.
The Biggest Peacetime Increase in our Nation’s History
Being a faithful account of Australia’s National Defence Strategy, 2026, as delivered to the National Press Club, Canberra, on a Thursday, during a fuel crisis, while the Geelong refinery burned.
At ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday the sixteenth of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty-six, with one of Australia’s two remaining oil refineries still smouldering in Geelong, with the nation’s fuel reserves declining toward five weeks of supply, with the Prime Minister in Malaysia asking Petronas if they had any spare diesel, Defence Minister Richard Marles took to the podium at the National Press Club in Canberra and announced the biggest peacetime increase in defence spending in Australia’s history.
The assembled journalists wrote this down:
Mr Marles, his brow furrowed in the manner of a man who has just remembered an important but elusive appointment, said Australia faced its most complex and threatening strategic circumstances since the end of World War Two. He said international norms that once constrained the use of force and military coercion continued to erode. He said the government was pursuing every avenue of increasing defence capability quickly, mostly through bigger defence appropriations but also through accessing private capital. He said delivering the strategy was not only about investing more. It was about spending better.
The assembled journalists continued to write this down, their pens moving with the solemnity of altar boys recording the responses at High Mass.
An extra fourteen billion dollars, Mr Marles said, would be spent on defence over the next four years. An additional fifty-three billion would be set aside over the next decade. By 2033, Australia’s total defence spending would reach three percent of GDP.
A hand went up at the back. Michelle Grattan of The Conversation wished to note that the three percent figure was calculated using the NATO definition of defence spending, which could include certain tangential items not traditionally considered defence expenditure, and that in effect this made the defence spend appear larger than it was.
Mr Marles said it was not only about investing more. It was about spending better.
It should be noted, for the benefit of those unfamiliar with the history of Australian defence procurement, that the tradition of spending better has a distinguished pedigree in this country.
The Australian War Memorial in Canberra is a monument of considerable architectural grandeur, though its construction budget was exceeded by some margin and it was completed eleven years late. The Collins-class submarine program, conceived in the 1980s to provide Australia with a world-class underwater capability, delivered vessels that were described by their own crews as the finest submarines money could produce, provided that money was prepared to wait for parts, accept considerable noise levels, and develop a philosophical attitude toward the relationship between the planned number of operational submarines at any given moment and the actual number. The Joint Strike Fighter program, now in its third decade of development, has produced an aircraft whose software upgrade was described by the Pentagon’s own Director of Operational Test and Evaluation as “predominantly unusable” throughout the entirety of fiscal year 2025, requires pilots to perform the in-flight equivalent of pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to reboot its radar, and achieved precisely no new combat capabilities in the year Australia was asked to order more of them.
Australia currently has seventy-two F-35s on order.
Mr Marles said it was not only about investing more. It was about spending better.
The Iran War, which began on February 28 and which Mr Marles described as having “greatly complicated” the strategic landscape, has offered several observations about the future of air power that the defence establishment has received with the equanimity of institutions that have already ordered seventy-two aircraft.
The F-35 is a stealth aircraft. Its stealth characteristics are effective against radar. Heat-sensing surveillance, which Iranian forces employed with some enthusiasm in the early weeks of Operation Epic Fury, detects aircraft by their engine exhaust rather than their radar profile, a distinction the stealth coating does not address. Iranian air defences destroyed several F-35s in the opening weeks of the conflict. The United States Air Force confirmed a smaller number of these losses than Iran reported, and a larger number than CENTCOM’s initial press releases suggested, and the investigation into the precise figure is ongoing.
The drone, meanwhile, costs approximately twenty thousand dollars. It is not stealthy. It does not require a software upgrade. It does not need to reboot its radar. It has been used to considerable effect by every party to every recent conflict, and Mr Marles announced on Tuesday that billions of extra dollars would be allocated to drones and counter-drone measures over the next decade.
One notes that the drone allocation comes after the F-35 allocation. One notes further that the counter-drone allocation comes after the drone allocation. One observes that this sequence describes, with considerable precision, the nature of arms races, and that the fifty-three billion dollars earmarked over the next decade will, in the fullness of time, generate its own counter-counter-drone requirement, which will presumably feature in the 2030 National Defence Strategy, also to be delivered at the National Press Club, also while something is on fire somewhere.
Mr Marles said the strategy would put Australia on a path to strong defence self-reliance.
Self-reliance should not, he clarified, be confused with self-sufficiency. Alliances, especially with the United States, would always be fundamental to Australia’s defence.
The United States is currently conducting a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which it cannot safely enter, using destroyers that have already turned around once after being addressed firmly by an Iranian drone, in pursuit of a strategy that has been rejected by a forty-nation coalition including most of Australia’s other allies, and whose defence minister has just told the National Press Club that it is not only about investing more, it is about spending better.
Australia’s contribution to the alliance this week has been a Wedgetail surveillance aircraft based in the Gulf. The Wedgetail is doing, by all accounts, excellent work.
It is perhaps worth pausing here to consider the three armed services whose budgets Mr Marles was expanding. The Royal Australian Navy, the Australian Army, and the Royal Australian Air Force each maintain their own headquarters, their own command structures, their own procurement offices, their own traditions, their own ceremonial requirements, their own disputes with each other about which of them is more fundamental to national defence, and their own opinions about the optimal allocation of the fifty-three billion dollars.
The question of whether three separate armed services, each with its own administrative apparatus, its own officer class, its own retired generals available for corporate board placement and television commentary, represents the most efficient use of the defence budget in an era of joint operations, drone warfare, and a naval blockade being conducted by a single nation in a single strait for reasons that change daily, is a question that has not been asked at the National Press Club today.
Mr Marles said it was not only about investing more. It was about spending better.
The AUKUS submarine agreement, under which Australia will acquire conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines from the United States at a cost currently estimated at between two hundred and three hundred and sixty-eight billion dollars depending on which estimate one consults and on which day one consults it, was described in the announcement of Vice Admiral Mark Hammond’s appointment as Australia’s new ADF chief as a project toward which he would “continue to bring valuable insight.”
The first submarine is expected to arrive sometime in the 2040s. Mr Hammond will have retired by then. Mr Marles will have retired by then. The children currently in primary school in Australia will be in their thirties by then, at which point they will receive a nuclear-powered submarine and a defence budget representing three percent of GDP calculated using the NATO definition, which can include certain tangential items.
In the interim, Australia’s fuel reserves stand at less than five weeks. The Geelong refinery, which supplies ten percent of the nation’s fuel and fifty percent of Victoria’s, is still being assessed for damage after Wednesday night’s fire. The last tanker carrying pre-war jet fuel is scheduled to dock on Sunday.
The fifty-three billion dollars is allocated over ten years.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said that creative accounting did not defend a single Australian.
Mr Marles said it was not only about investing more. It was about spending better.
The assembled journalists packed up their notebooks.
Outside, on Canberra’s Capital Circle, a government vehicle filled up at the pump. The price per litre was a figure that would have seemed improbable eighteen months ago and now seems, given current trajectories, almost nostalgic.
The National Defence Strategy runs to one hundred and twelve pages. It does not mention the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984, which is also a kind of strategy, and which is sitting in the drawer.
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Dr. Martha Haly’s article said that 44% of households (equating to nearly 4 million people) have already experienced food insecurity. What will it be when the effects of the US-Israel illegal war on Iran take effect? It is obscene to be increasing defence spending (is it to appease Trump?) at this time.
Let’s not forget that there are a number of former Liberal and Labor politicians who have taken up positions in the military-industrial complex.
What does this say about Labor’s priorities? The spending on defence, I believe without doublechecking, was already way more than any other department.
Looking forward to the updated assessment of the US and UK submarine building programs now that the USA has spent billions on its illegal and immoral war on Iran, and the UK will likely go into recession. The USA will have to spend possibly hundreds of billions to restock its radar systems, missile systems, reaper drones, air craft and munitions.
What are the chances that there won’t be any money for lifting the rate at which the US can build Virginia class subs.?
Not that it matters, even without this war of choice we weren’t going to get any subs for our $368 billion, it was never about getting subs it was about building another US base on Australian soil.
Labor is never going to admit they are giving away money on AUKUS, only the Greens and a few Independents are saying get out, so the only way to get out of it is to put them into power.
Richard Marles is paid with public money to serve the best interests of Australians. Given the scale of recent defence spending and our close alignment with the United States, is it fair to ask whether these decisions primarily serve Australia, or broader U.S. strategic and defence industry interests? What do others think?
Denis:
Marles, like many of his ilk, is in thrall to the USAnian military-industrial complex. AUKUS is not, and never has been, about what is best for Australia. It’s purely about USAnian imperialism.
Jejune Marles to the fore again.Of all the problems our current government has, many of them own goals, the witless Dicky is near the top.The mountain of bullshit continues to rise, and one wonders when the landslide is due.
We already knew that the Aukus thing was dead the moment the Liar pulled it out of his arse.Why did Abalone not stomp all over it when he had the chance?Why do people keep voting for these weak, unimaginative hypocrites?
It gives me no pleasure to announce that Retched Mediocrity aka Richard Marles, the right wing numbers man from Geelong whose factional alliances have removed two excellent LABOR Ministers to be replaced by RW lackies who support Mediocrity. His timing was impeccable; immediately after a huge election result, so that the Albanese ”honeymoon” with disgruntled Australian voters would remember that lesser politicians lurked like bunyips in the dark waters of Lake Burley Griffin.
Now he is in a position well above his level of competence and able to wreak more damage to the Australian nation than the incompetence of Mountbatten during WWII. For example,
1) The JSF project was rubbished by informed Australian evaluation aviators BEFORE Howard signed the first purchase order, so the current further ordering of another 72 incompetent fighter jets bodes ill for the defence of Australian interests ….. but provides possibilities for post-politics careers in military consulting.
2) The best thing about the Collins Class Subs was their retirement which left a big hole in Australian defence capacity. But then since the Dame Pattie (Americas Cup contender) was laid up there has been an on-going shortage of boats for the Navy to enjoy.
Indeed, a fast catamaran hull ship builder departed Hobart because the Defence Department of that time refused to do any business with them. (And people vote for the COALition??)
3) Drones, NOT USUKA subs that might/may/could be delivered if they can be built before the final apocalypse, are the future of warfare. The greatest advantage is that they may be manufactured quickly & easily in factories located in Australia from off-the-shelf components.
The Ukranians are selling anti-drone experience, skills & technology so there is only on-going R&D required. Indeed, Iran saw the advantages some time ago and has used it to protect their country from invasion by a demented, geriatric, misogynist criminal PPOTUS (Pederast Protector of the Undemocratic Sewer) and the ”might” of the American military industrial complex.
Why a single Iranian drone caused two US destroyers to turn around and high-tail it at 30 knots out of the Straits of Hormuz. The destruction of US land bases in fossil fuel client states was simply devastating.
While ever Australia supports the ”cultural cringe” that ”All things Australian are at best second rate” there will be little hope for the future. So the appointment of a politician having no idea about defence policy is almost a self-defeating consequence.
Good one Cocky, as usual.You’d have to suspect that the CIA, and/or Mossad had a hand in Marles’ ascension to a position that no sentient being would give him.
Denis, Michael West has reported “Now Richard Marles says Australia’s part in a US war against China is a fait accompli.”… “Our major trading partner, which has posed us no threat but buys 40% of our exports and has delivered nothing but prosperity to The Lucky Country.”
That theology comes directly from the USA, through the ASPI, possibly Five Eyes, NewsCorp media influence, direct diplomatic interactions, and apparently some enchantment of Marles with all things USA.
Recently, prior to his latest NPC speech there were a $78 million grant to Australian companies that are a part of the military-industrial complex arming Israel, which it uses in genocide, and a missile or drone spend. I didn’t watch his speech but apparently there is $14 billion going towards ghost subs, drones and missiles.
The idea of spending on ghost subs, drones and missiles I don’t mind, but this is apparently going to be in partnership with Lockheed Martin, and I assume maybe Raytheon. Therein lies the second problem with AUKUS, the first being throwing money away for subs we won’t get. The problem being it ties us up in USA technology, perhaps dependent on software updates like with the f-35s, and perhaps embeds us further as just a part of the US military.
We need to move away from dependence on US technologies and partnerships. Firstly, it is the USA that is the greatest threat to world peace, and so Australia, Second, a prudent defence strategy wouldn’t rely on weapon systems and the like from one source, but instead employ a range of sources, or homegrown sources. We need to develop our own research and development capabilities.
Marles is a direct threat to Australian security, surely his credibility is shot to pieces by now, and the sooner we get rid of him the better.
Perhaps the most important consideration of all though is Labor’s priorities. We have masses living in poverty, our social services are overstretched, underfunded and heading towards collapse, if we extracate ourselves from following US foreign policy and get US bases off our soil our national security risk would be very low, defence spending should not be our number one priority.
Oops!! Silly me!! Seniors Moment! More on Collins subs.
RE COLLINS CLASS SUBMARINES.
Why did Australia get stuck with the disastrous American built Collins Class Submarines when the RAN recommended the Australian government purchase better European subs??
Because the politicians chose to ignore the professional opinions and follow the purchasing demanded by US entities.
This information was sourced from a retired career RAN Senior Petty Officer who was part of the evaluation panel whose professional advice was ignored.