The federal government’s decision to bring $1 billion in defence spending forward is “lazy”, former defence chief Chris Barrie says.
The government on Monday announced the $1 billion would be brought forward in today’s budget, prompting a question from ABC Radio National this morning as to whether it was “just pushing existing money forward”.
Former defence chief Admiral Chris Barrie in 2020.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I argue it’s lazy, in this sense: everybody talks about how much GDP gets spent on defence,” Barrie told the program.
“But I’d frankly like to see a new mantra now [of], what do we want to be able to do, what do we need to do to equip ourselves, and when do we need to get it by? That should drive the defence budget because that’s a really important set of judgments.”
Responding to Barrie’s comments, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese later said overhauling Australia’s thinking about what it was capable of was “precisely” what his government was doing.
“We inherited a defence system that seemed to regard that you could defend a country with a press release because there were press releases and not much actual delivery, and that’s why we did a defence strategic review to identify what we needed going forward,” Albanese told ABC Radio National.
“That’s precisely what we’ve been rolling out – that does include additional investment, an additional $10.6 billion over the forward estimates, to acquire new capabilities.”
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