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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am.

Missiles that can precisely target enemy forces 500 kilometres away – out in our region.

That’s the future of the Australian Defence Forces – and what we are defending ourselves with today is woefully inadequate for the strategic circumstances, according to the recent defence strategic review.

But questions are emerging: how will we pay for the changes it’s proposing? How can we save money? And how will our neighbours react to a more capable Australian military?

Today, chief political correspondent for The Saturday Paper, Karen Middleton, on how military spending lost its way, and the challenging path towards making our forces fit for purpose.

It’s Thursday, May 4.

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RUBY:

So, Karen, the federal government, it's just completed its defence strategic review. And that review, really it's an urgent call for Australia to shift its military stance, and to shift it in a way that we haven't seen in decades, in 80 years. So to begin with, what is it about this moment that seems to call for dramatic action?

KAREN:

Well, we've been moving in this direction for a couple of years. Two years ago we saw the Morrison Government issue a defence strategic update, and that warned that we no longer can assume that we have a ten year timeline for any warning about threats to Australia, direct threats to Australia.

Archival tape – Scott Morrison:

“Today, with the Indo-Pacific experiencing fundamental shifts and increased threats, our commitment will only deepen.”

KAREN:

There's been an assumption for a long time in defence circles that we would have plenty of warning if there was going to be a direct threat, and now that has evaporated.

Archival tape – Scott Morrison:

“Our defence forces will need to be prepared for any future, no matter how unlikely, and hopefully not needed in the worst of circumstances.”

KAREN:

So this builds on that and adds the word “urgent” quite a lot. I think it's 13 times in the review, the word “urgent” appears in the public version.

Archival tape – Richard Marles:

“One point I’d simply make is this, that in order to meet the moment, in order to meet the circumstances and the sense of urgency which is described in the DSR…”

Archival tape – Laura Tingle:

“The focus on missiles reflects a sense of urgency in the review..”

Archival tape – Peter Hartcher:

“One of the main themes of the report of this defence review is the need for extreme urgency for Australia to take…”

Archival tape – Richard Marles:

“And there is a huge degree of urgency in terms of the action. Right now…”

KAREN:

So they're making the point that there is now a threat that for decades we have not faced a potential threat in the region, and now we do. And we need to reconfigure our military and think differently about our strategy in order to meet that threat, and try and meet it offshore rather than waiting until such time as it might come onshore.

RUBY:

That's interesting, because when we look at previous conflicts that Australia has participated in, obviously the biggest defence focus in the last couple of decades has been in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are conflicts very far away from our immediate region. So can you talk to me a bit about the strategy that's underpinned our involvement in those conflicts then, versus now, and how things have changed?

KAREN:

Yes, we've got to go back over the last 50 years really to see the arc of that change. And it goes to the way that geopolitics has developed in the Indo-Pacific region. And the government is now saying that our Defence Force isn't fit for purpose, for where we now find ourselves. So let's go back to the 1960s. Remember, that was the period after World War II, World War II ending in the 40s, a new strategy developing, and Australia saw action in the region in the 1940s with the advance of the Japanese.

We know Japanese submarines came very close, into Sydney Harbour no less.

Archival tape – Archival News:

“This is Sydney Harbour, the scene of a raid not by bombers, but by Japanese submarines, which crept in during the night for a surprise attack. But the surprise didn't come up. The powerful defences were on the alert.”

KAREN:

So there was a threat then, and Australia and its allies pushed that back while it was still offshore in the Pacific. So that was the genesis of what was known as a forward defence strategy that was formally adopted in the 60s.

Archival tape – Robert Menzies:

“Whether we should withdraw from the scene, or whether we should make our contribution by word, or whether we should leave the United States to go it alone.”

KAREN:

That evolved — as any suggestion of a threat dissipated — into a different kind of a strategy, which was what was known as Defence of Australia, and that was formally adopted in the late 80s in the Defence White Paper, prepared by Professor Paul Dibb, who's at the Australian National University. Now the Defence of Australia strategy was much more focussed on defending our territory from onshore bases in Australia, defending particularly the northern reaches of Australia from any future threat. But the threat was, at that point, hypothetical.

Where we find ourselves now, is in a situation where that threat is a little bit more than hypothetical. We have a rising power in China, and that poses a risk to Australia, not only in military terms potentially into the future, but in economic terms. And now what we have is what some analysts are saying is a combination of forward defence and defence of Australia. In fact, Peter Lay, the former chief of Army, described it to me as the forward defence of Australia, returning to a focus on deterring any threat further afield, but also having the capability to defend ourselves here.

RUBY:

Okay, well let's dig a little bit further into that, into the new defence strategy, including this idea of non-traditional warfare, and trying to counter any economic threat to Australia. What is the Federal Government saying about what it's proposing?

KAREN:

Well they’re refocusing, the Defence Force structure has been based on the idea of, what they call, a balanced force, which is balance across the three services, trying to anticipate any number of a range of scenarios. What this review says now is we don't have time for that any more. We have to go with the most likely scenario, and that is the sort of scenario that could see a threat in our region to the economy, and ultimately to Australia militarily as well. And that threat, obviously, most likely is from China.

Archival tape – Richard Marles:

“We are much more vulnerable to coercion than we've ever been before. And we need to be thinking about the way in which we posture our Defence Force to deal with that. And what that means is we need a defence...”

KAREN:

So the government is now adopting through this review, and through accepting its recommendations, an approach that sees what they call a “focussed force”. Shifting resources away from some of the areas where they think they will not be as urgently required, into the areas where they will be more urgently required.

Archival tape – Richard Marles:

“This is an exercise of reshaping our defence force. I mean, the very notion of that is that there are some capabilities that we need more of, like long range strike missiles. There are some capabilities we don't need as much of going forward.”

KAREN:

That means extra focus on, particularly, the Navy because we're an island, and also the Air Force. So some of the resources from the Army are being redeployed. The government is finding $7.8 billion in savings that are going to other resources, particularly naval resources and missiles. Currently, the capacity of our missiles is about 40 kilometres. The government wants to purchase missiles that have a range of more like 500 kilometres, and then maybe even into the future even further than that.

Archival tape – Richard Marles:

“We hope that we can begin with the assembly of the strike missiles that go in the HIMARS system, but we want to build on that so that we're actually manufacturing the full suite of these weapons in Australia.”

KAREN:

The whole idea is if we're bigger and scarier, then any country that might have designs on a military advance will think twice about it. A combination of deterring a military threat, and actually protecting our economic interests, particularly in the Indian Ocean, and also beefing up our capacities around the Pacific as well.

RUBY:

And that idea that money is being redeployed. So it's not new funding being allocated, it's existing funding being rearranged. That's been controversial, hasn't it? Tell me about what you're hearing.

KAREN:

Well, there's concern from some analysts that the document that we saw didn't actually stipulate how much money would be devoted to this kind of exercise. It had some preliminary figures. It talked about the strategy costing about $19 billion, of which 7.8 billion is this redeployed money mostly from Army.

But the concern, I guess, from some analysts is if there isn't a firm financial commitment into the future, a clear statement on what's going to be spent, that this won't be taken seriously, that any country looking at this strategic review, wondering whether Australia is serious about it, won't think that it's serious unless there's an actual financial commitment.
They're probably a little bit reluctant, because of the politics around defence spending at a time of economic struggle for the country. And it's the unenviable choice of governments all the time, having to decide between domestic priorities and international or military priorities. And they've got to sort of focus on both things at once. So we haven't seen firm commitments on money. We've seen a general commitment that there'll be more.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Karen, we’ve talked about what the Government is going to do, develop this longer range capability, but there has to be a reason our military isn’t fit for purpose, today. So, what do these findings tell us about how we went down the wrong path and, really, what Australia needs to stop doing when it comes to military spending?

KAREN:

Well, the review says we're too far away from being able to do it, that this repurposing, this refocusing, has to happen urgently because we're not ready for the most likely future threat. There's a raft of programs that they're either refocusing, delaying, or in some cases cancelling. And if you look at the cancelled programs or the ones that are really being cut back dramatically, it's things like short range artillery, you know, cutting back projects like the infantry fighting vehicles, that are seen to be a bit too big and heavy and not easily deployed offshore, into more focussed purchases that could be needed sooner.

And the whole emphasis of this review is we need equipment that can move between land and sea. One of the really interesting aspects of the public version of this review is it really puts a rocket, pardon the pun, up defence for the way that they conduct these procurement exercises, the way they decide what they're going to buy. They're going for the absolute best version of everything, all the bells and whistles, and taking a really long time and it's costing way too much money, and they're now being told, “no, that's not how we're going to do it.” We need it to be as good as it can be in a functional sense, and then get it into operation. The system has to change. It has to cost less money. We don't have the time to wait for this process like this anymore. It's now the best possible vision to address the challenges that we face really soon.
And the other thing is that everything now is being looked at in the context of the purchase of nuclear powered submarines. So in some ways, the forces are being reconfigured with that at the heart. That is a huge capability, massively expensive and a big game changer. Whatever you think of the nuclear option for the capacities of our Defence Force. So the Navy fleet and what we do onshore, with these fighting vehicles and other other capabilities, will all be looked at through the lens of, well, how does that work with our submarine fleet, and how does it work with smaller vessels moving offshore? And that is the lens now through which everything that the Defence Department is going to purchase will be viewed.

RUBY:

And so Karen, when we talk about our Military using force further afield in our region. What we're talking about is being able to demonstrate that Australia can attack targets that are potentially outside Australian territory, so further afield. How do you think countries in our region are going to take that, though? The idea of Australia building that capacity, and has the Federal Government kind of signalled how it will deal with our neighbours as we try and build those capabilities?

KAREN:

Yes, well this is another important element of this strategy, which is that it's sort of a whole of nation effort. So rather than a military strategy sitting over here, and our diplomacy sitting over there, it's an integrated idea, that our diplomacy and our military strategy work much more closely together than perhaps they have in the past. So the government is very keen to make sure that countries around the region are engaged with this strategy, that they understand why Australia is proposing this, and what its plan is, how they would fit into that plan, and that there is reassurance and collaboration to ensure that the whole region is stable into the future.

RUBY:

And I just wanted to pick up on the domestic politics that you mentioned earlier, and the idea of how further defence spending might be taken at this moment in time. I mean, we've already seen the announcement of the $380 billion submarine project, but this new defence plan, I mean, it could be very expensive. So is this playing into the Government's reluctance to announce more defence funding related to this review? Are they concerned about the appearance of announcing this kind of spending, particularly at a moment where there is a cost of living crisis and there's still a big budget deficit?

KAREN:

I think they're treading very carefully in how the messaging goes on this whole strategy. As you say, they've already had some pushback from their traditional constituency about the price tag, the eye watering price tag for the nuclear submarines project. That's politically controversial enough. And I think the government has decided to, sort of, push a few decisions out, a little bit. At least partly for reasons of not inflaming some of those controversies too quickly. So we see in the strategic review a number of other reviews, a flurry of reviews. For example, we've got a huge contract with Britain to build frigates. And if you read this review, it's suggesting that frigates are really too big. What we want are smaller vessels that are more versatile. So is the government going to cancel that frigate contract, like the previous government cancelled the French contract for conventionally powered submarines and shifted to a nuclear option? Will this government now make the same sort of decision with the frigates? It has deferred that decision. I think it didn't want that all to be tied up with the review. It wanted people to focus on the strategy. And the new review, to look at the surface fleet, it has only got a three month timeline. That suggests to you they already know what they want to do. The information is there. This is not starting with a blank piece of paper. It's really just tidying up the direction that they want to take, and working out the execution of it. So I think there are a number of things like that in this review that suggest that there's a bit more to say, but they don't especially want to say that just yet.

Of course, the politics is made even more tricky by the fact that Australia is trying to thaw the freezing relations with China, right at the moment that we've seen for the last couple of years. There are signs that the Chinese Government is preparing to lift some of the sanctions they've had against Australian products. And so the Government now has to manage the complexity of trying to warm up the trade relationship at the same time as implementing a new defence strategy that really has concerns about China's ambitions right at the heart of it. And of course we have to remember that what we have here is the declassified version of the review. It's not the full picture. And in some ways, while it has all the key points in it, it's a little bit missing the narrative. But those of us without the security clearances have to make do with this public version and the kinds of explanations and reassurances we're getting from the government as a result.

RUBY:

Karen, thank you so much for your time.

KAREN:

Thanks, Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

A controversial fracking project in the Beetaloo Basin has been given the greenlight by the Northern Territory Government.

The announcement was made the same day 100 scientists called on the government to block the project, claiming it will produce in excess of 1.4 billion tonnes of carbon emissions, once exported gas is counted.

AND

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese chose yesterday to be interviewed by UK television host Piers Morgan.

In the interview, Albanese bemoaned the rise of cancel culture, distanced himself from imminently pursuing a republic, and gave Morgan a definition of what a woman is.

Trans groups have labelled the Prime Minister’s response on the question of gender a ‘dogwhistle’ to transphobes.

I’m Ruby Jones. This is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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