CANBERRA: The Australian government will increase military spending by AU$53 billion (US$38.1 billion) over the next 10 years under the 2026 national defence strategy (NDS) announced on Thursday, Xinhua reported.
Minister for Defence and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles detailed the new strategy in a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, describing the funding boost as the “biggest peacetime increase” in Australian history.
He said that the new NDS includes an additional AU$14 billion (US$10.1 billion) in spending over the next four years compared to the previous strategy from 2024, and an additional AU$53 billion over the next decade.
The government said that the increased spending will take Australia’s defence budget to 3 per cent of GDP by 2033 under the NATO methodology that includes adjacent spending such as military pensions.
Australia’s defence budget is currently at 2.0 per cent of GDP under a narrower method of calculation that does not include adjacent spending. The 2024 NDS projected that defence spending would hit 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2034 under the narrower definition.
Marles said that Australia is facing its “most complex and threatening strategic circumstances” since the end of World War II amid the erosion of “international norms” that once constrained the use of force.
He said that the federal government would pursue every avenue to quickly increase defence capability, including through accessing private capital.
“It puts Australia on a path to strengthen our defence self-reliance. It reinforces the industrial and national foundations of defence, and it situates Australia firmly within a network of trusted regional and global partnerships,” he said of the NDS.
The increased spending includes AU$12 billion (US$8.6 billion) that was previously announced to upgrade shipyards in Western Australia that will support maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines and up to AU$5 billion (US$3.6 billion) for new investments in drone technology.
–BERNAMA-XINHUA
