As we see China’s PLA-Navy warships firing live weapons in the waters between Australia and New Zealand, it’s time to act on the fact that Australia’s geography no longer protects our population or key infrastructure from military threats. We have an obvious and urgent homeland defence problem.

It’s a nasty coincidence that the PLA warships’ actions are happening right as the IPA-SAA partnership has released our 5th report – this one on Australia’s vulnerable homeland.

Our military’s bases ships and aircraft here at home are largely unprotected. But this brings out a wider public policy issue around basic security here in Australia.

This is the uncomfortable question about what needs to be done as a result of the new fact that Australia’s location no longer protects our home territory from attack.

That problem is not hypothetical but is now an obvious and disturbing reality, as these Chinese warships are equipped with long range anti-ship & surface to air missiles that pose risks to military & civilian ships & aircraft. The warships also have land attack capabilities.

Actions must go beyond protecting military bases and establishments, because it will be simply unacceptable during a time of conflict for the Australian population and broader economic infrastructure to be defenceless while our citizens watch our military remaining safe and secure in its bases.

Imagine Kyiv’s population and those of other Ukrainian cities in Ukraine being left entirely undefended against Russian missiles while powerful air and defence systems protected military bases and the frontline to see how unthinkable this has become. In 2025, Australia’s military has some clear vulnerabilities that will affect its ability to sustain operations during a conflict involving major powers in our region which must be addressed if we are to play a part in deterring conflict and, if deterrence fails, succeed in protecting Australia and Australians through success in war.

Our region has been experiencing the largest expansion in military power since World War Two. China has grown its military over the last 30 years to the extent that it is now capable of long distance power projection across the domains of air, maritime, space and cyber in ways that can threaten regional security and also threaten military forces operating out of Australia’s small number of bases and establishments. 

Largely as a result of this growth in aggressive Chinese power, our security agencies have recognised that Australia’s distance from potential adversaries no longer protects Australian territory. The proliferation of advanced long range missiles capable of reaching Australia from North Asia, combined with new threats from long range and loitering drones, our population faces risks here at home that are a new feature for us should a major conflict occur in our region.

Investments must be made urgently in a greatly expanded layered air and missile defence program to protect bases and key civilian infrastructure and to have some capacity to be sited at key population centres as threats evolve.

Defence is currently spending up to $8bn over this next ten years on a unique software system for an ‘integrated battle management system’ to control air and missile defence capabilities, while making almost no investment in actual working interception systems that this elegant system, should it work, might operate. This priority should be reversed so that Australia acquires existing effective defence systems rapidly with these funds. Any more elegant and networked software system to orchestrate their use must be a later and second order priority, after some actual defensive capabilities are acquired.

This report provides six recommendations setting out actions that the Federal Government must take over this next term of government.

Recommendation 1: Homeland defence is real.  The Government must produce a strategy for protection of key civilian population centres and civilian infrastructure against targeted long range strikes during a major conflict and begin to provide at least a limited layered air and missile defence capacity to protect against this evolving risk.

Billions of dollars have been spent by successive Australian governments to upgrade defence establishments and bases across Australia.  But these upgrades have been about replacing degraded and aged-out buildings, services and facilities, as well as to accommodate the new needs of next generation ships, aircraft and vehicles.  These habitability and functional upgrades have not involved hardening bases to be able to withstand missile and drone strikes that can disable the bases and destroy hugely expensive weapon systems like our Navy’s ships and our RAAF’s fighter and electronic warfare aircraft.

Recommendation 2: The next Australian Government must shift the priority for defence facilities budgets from a habitability focus to one that hardens bases and protects key military assets located on them.

Hardening our military bases is an essential step given the threat environment in our region. However to survive in and sustain combat operations during a credible major conflict, Australian and partner military forces operating out of Australia must also be able to disperse to civilian ports, airfields and facilities, to complicate adversary targeting and to draw on the significant latent capacity in Australia’s civilian infrastructure. There must be a particular focus on turning existing facilities that support our mining and resource sectors in Australia’s north into dual use capable places that can be used by our military, because the locations and the scale of these facilities – ports, airfields, fuel storage systems – are significant latent enablers of military operations.

Recommendation 3: Defence must identify core civilian partners who own and operate civilian ports, airfields and other infrastructure that the ADF and our military partners will use during a time of war and exercise with these civilian partners against scenarios that require dispersed operations.

Recommendation 4: The Federal Government must commission work to make key port and airfield facilities in Australia’s north developed by our mining and resource sector capable of dual use operation by our military during a crisis.

Energy is a key enabler of military operations.  Despite the rise of alternative energy sources in Australia’s energy system – particularly in electricity generation – the Australian Defence Force is a liquid fossil fuel-powered force.  All its major platforms – ships, aircraft and armoured vehicles – burn fossil fuels and this will remain the case for at least the next three decades given the force structure now and the planned future force (with the narrow exception of 8 nuclear powered submarines).  

Recommendation 5: because the ADF will remain a fossil-fuel powered force until at least the 2050s, the places and bases our military would operate from during a conflict must have expanded diesel and aviation gas storage and be supported by transport infrastructure that allows their rapid resupply in a time of crisis.  This involves new spending on fuel storage as well as investments in road and rail transport networks, particularly for Australia’s northern bases, ports and airfields.

Ensuring supply of liquid fuel to our military is essential, however, no matter what other steps are taken to enable Australia’s military to sustain combat operations, if Australia’s tiny liquid  fuel reserves and limited refining capacity are not addressed, Australia will be able to be brought to a standstill weeks into any major war or crisis.

Recommendation 6: the Federal Government must end decades of gestures and half measures towards building strategic fuel reserves and invest in credible levels of storage and onshore refining of the two key fuels for transport and military use: diesel and aviation gas – at levels designed around projected consumption.

This article is from the 5th report in the IPA-SAA Blueprint for Defence series. Read the report at this link