Defence spending hot topic

LIKE most areas of government, there are things that each side of politics wants to talk about in defence and national security and things they would rather avoid.

For Labor, the spending cuts in the Rudd/gillard era are acutely embarrassing. Kevin Rudd’s 2009 defence white paper – written largely by the current Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo – was the first to flag the danger of a rising China.

But the government failed to follow through with the spending needed to meet the threat. Worse, under Julia Gillard – whose 2013 white paper downplayed the Chinese threat – spending was cut.

Naturally the government is keen to talk about this in the context of what Labor might do if it gets back in this year.

Labor argues this was a different time and it has backed all defence spending that has happened since – most recently, last year’s decision to acquire nuclearpowered submarines through the new AUKUS arrangement with the US and UK.

That deal involved dumping the contract to buy diesel subs from the French, which defence expert Peter Dean describes as “probably the biggest procurement fiasco in our history”, which is why Labor is happy to talk about it, along with the growing evidence the Hunter-class frigate program may also be in trouble following a secret report leaked to the Australian that warned the ships could be substantially slower, have a shorter range than originally intended, and be vulnerable to detection by enemy vessels.

Labor is also happy to talk about the need to acquire extra fire power while we wait for the arrival of the nuclear subs, which are at least a decade away, something the government says is in

hand.