The Albanese government may be the most clueless we’ve had on defence since Whitlam, but Anthony Albanese knows one thing: how to shoot the messenger.
When the nation’s dedicated, bipartisan defence thinktank warns that we are critically weak on defence in the most perilous strategic environment since WWII, does the PM listen? No, he comes out, all spluttering indignation, and attacks the messenger.
Anthony Albanese has derided the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, demanding the defence policy think tank “have a look at themselves” after it published a new report that claimed Australia’s defence funding was insufficient to address the geostrategic threats facing the nation.
What on earth is this silly little man talking about? As usual, he’s lying through his teeth.
“I think they need to have a look at themselves as well and the way that they conduct themselves in debates,” Mr Albanese responded.
“We’ve had a Defence Strategic Review. We’ve got considerable additional investment going into defence – $10 billion,” he added, claiming that Labor had plans to lift defence expenditure up to 2.4 per cent of GDP.
Which is all a load of steaming donkey bollocks. Even the government’s own projections are to lift to defence spending to just 2.3 per cent of GDP – a decade hence. In the short term, the government is bringing forward just one billion dollars of new spending. The majority of that ‘additional investment’ is either at least a decade away, or money already committed to stuff like buying submarines: likewise, at least a decade away.
Mr Albanese continued his veiled criticism of ASPI, claiming it “regularly produced these sort of reports”, and argued the think tank was “run by people who’ve been in a position to make a difference in the past as part of former governments”.
“I think it’s predictable, frankly,” he added.
Of course they regularly produce these sort of reports, you fatuous dolt. Because they’re right. Because you and the idiot factional crony you’ve put in the defence portfolio, the ludicrous Richard Marles, have sat on your arses and done next to nothing. Just as former governments too often have.
But shouting, ‘Well, they bollixed up defence, too!’ is not exactly a ringing defence of your own ineptitude, now is it? Business as usual just isn’t good enough, you utter twit.
Labor’s focus on future military capabilities and its “business as usual” defence budget will leave Australia with a “paper ADF” that is ill-prepared for near-term conflict, a new report warns.
While AUKUS was a strategic masterstroke from the previous government, much of its boots-on-the-ground measures are at least a decade away. Labor is doing nothing in the meantime to counter current threats. Worse than nothing: it’s so asleep at the wheel that an entire Chinese fleet can sail right past our coasts without the government or defence brass having the slightest clue. It took a commercial airline pilot to notice.
The think tank warns in its Cost of Defence report that there is a disconnect between the urgency of emerging threats and the timelines of major equipment purchases that won’t be delivered for a decade or more.
The report, to be released on Thursday, follows the government’s March budget that left defence spending languishing at about 2 per cent of GDP, despite fears of a potential US-China conflict before 2030, and pressure from the Trump administration to lift military spending to 3 per cent of national output.
If the government is relying on the lazy strategy of post-War Europe, hiding behind America’s apron strings (while sneering to its face), they’ve got another thing coming. The new administration, like the American taxpayer, is sick of picking up the bill for feckless ‘allies’ who aren’t prepared to do any lifting of their own.
The ASPI report, by former Home Affairs deputy secretary Mark Ablong, says while the government claims to have made a “generational investment” in Australia’s defence, “that investment has been put off for another generation”.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the next five to 10 years are going to be critically perilous. As I’ve pointed out before, Xi Jinping is fast reaching his use-by date. If he wants to achieve his dream of a so-called ‘unified China’ (in other words, forcibly annexing Taiwan), he’s running out of time, which puts the region on a hair-trigger.
Much of the rest of the region isn’t so blase.
Mr Ablong argues […] other Indo-Pacific nations are rearming “much faster than us”, with China’s aggressive military expansion raising the “real possibility” of a regional or global armed conflict in the next five years.
They certainly aren’t ignoring warning shots like these:
The report follows the circumnavigation of Australia by three Chinese warships earlier this year, which conducted a surprise live-weapons drill the Australian government was alerted to by a Virgin Australia pilot.
Mr Ablong says the flotilla’s mission was to conduct rehearsed strikes on Australian cities, national infrastructure and joint Australia-US facilities.
The abject failure – indeed, the indignant refusal – of the Albanese government to make any meaningful counter to China’s aggression raises the question of just whose side they’re on. If nothing else is clear, it’s obvious that China got a good return on all the money and manpower it’s poured into Labor’s coffers.
