Defence Minister Richard Marles today used his National Press Club address to launch Australia's 2026 National Defence Strategy, a document billed as a landmark reset of Australia's defence posture. It was anything but, it has Labor doubling down on its dependency on the US, while applying tricky accounting on defence numbers to placate the Murdoch media and the increasingly volatile US leadership.
As stated by Greens Senator and Defence Spokesperson David Shoebridge:
"It is astonishing that nowhere in his "landmark" defence speech did Defence Minister Richard Marles even mention Donald Trump or the chaotic behaviour of the US and its military. That tells you everything about how detached this strategy is from the world we actually live in.
"Minister Marles has looked at the last twelve months of global chaos and decided China is the main threat to peace. Someone should check if he owns a television.
"Minister Marles still talks of "impactful projection" with his plan to project Australian military force anywhere on the planet to police global trade. This is a foolish and dangerous strategy that inevitably embeds us into global US military deployments.
"At its core this new strategy is doubling down on the US alliance, while still pretending it is based on a "shared commitment to rules, sovereignty and self respect." You can only deliver this message if you actively ignore all the evidence of the US actively trashing international law and peaceful norms.
"For all the trumpeting of increased spending it's worth noting it's primarily delivered by an accounting trick where defence pensions get rebadged as defence spending and most of actual budget increases are being sunk straight into the AUKUS submarine black hole.
"This current strategy is a frantic attempt to convince News Corp and the US leadership of our unquestioning loyalty, it has nothing to do with pivoting towards a genuinely sovereign defence force that would protect us here at home.
"The US is an increasingly rogue actor pursuing its own interests, not ours and any rational review of national defence needs to acknowledge this.
"Real human security means investment in defensive capacity plus investment in renewable energy, housing, health and education. The things that actually keep Australians safe."
