It’s been an extraordinary gap in the debate around our federal election that no one has got to grips with the need to make Australia more secure fast. We’ve watched Chinese warships sail around our country firing their weapons. And we’re seeing Russia building a closer military partnership with Indonesia under President Prabowo. 

China and Russia flexing their military muscles closer to Australia is the ugly new reality whoever wins the election will face.

On top of these obvious threats to Australian security, we’re facing a less reliable and more demanding American ally under the leadership of Donald Trump. That means we have to do more for ourselves.

But all that’s seemed to sail right past our major parties as they’ve competed with each other to give cash splashes to Australian voters, even while many Australians know this isn’t smart given the risks and problems the world faces economically and on the security front.

That’s changed a bit today – late in the election campaign but late is better than never. Peter Dutton has announced the Coalition’s defence policy ten days out from the federal election. 

As promised, he’s set out a plan to increase defence spending and to do so over the next five years.  The numbers are $21 billion extra into defence over the next 5 years, taking spending up from the Albanese government’s 2 per cent of GDP now to 2.5 per cent by 2030.  And he’s foreshadowed a larger increase to 3 per cent of GDP over the five years after that as an ‘aspiration’ a Coalition government would deliver on in office.

The Albanese government had used its March budget to pretty much just stick with its existing defence plans, with a bit of minor money shuffling between different budget years but leaving the ten year Defence budget unchanged.  That means a slow crawl from 2.05 per cent of GDP to 2.4 per cent by 2034.

So, $21 billion in new money for Defence over the next five years is the big news. Against an annual budget of $59 billion now growing to $100 billion by 2030, that’s not enormous, but it can make a big difference to what our military is able to do this decade if it’s spent well.

The absolute priority for this money is for it to make the Australian military more capable and more powerful now – in the 2020s.  So, it can’t be just a handed over to our intensely bureaucratic Defence Department officials, who think rapid action is a plan for feasibility studies followed by years of paperwork leading to a decision on what they might do 10 years from now.

The best bang for the buck will come from giving early contracts to Australian companies who are already making the things our military needs but doesn’t have: armed and unarmed drones, munitions and even locally produced artillery shells. 

These are all the ‘consumables of conflict’ that any military needs to have a flow of in a time of war.  They’re all things that our American ally is struggling to produce enough of for themselves – and they are things that Australian companies have been making and selling to militaries like the Ukrainians and the United Kingdom. 

Defence has been running annual competitions with Australian companies showing off their latest autonomous systems for years now, under programs like the Navy’s Autonomous Warrior exercises in Jervis Bay. So, they know the companies and systems that perform well and are available – they just haven’t moved from small grants and demonstrations to actually buying anything from these companies, even as other militaries have.

Unlike hugely expensive frigates and nuclear submarines, drones for our Air Force and Navy can be bought by the hundreds or thousands and produced quickly, instead of taking decades.  Using these systems, our Air Force and Navy would deliver actual 24/7 deep surveillance of any more visiting Chinese military warships or aircraft, and keep a close eye on the developing Jakarta-Moscow partnership. And Beijing and Moscow would know that their militaries couldn’t operate without a care in our near neighbourhood. 

Australia’s Defence Force has a small number of very capable men and women and is struggling to recruit the people it needs even for the small force it is now.  Equipping the men and women of the ADF with the new weapons of war we see used so successfully by Ukraine and in the Middle East – and making sure these are designed and built by successful Australian companies – will make us all safer and more secure. It would also make the ADF an attractive career again, because young Australians will know if they join, they will have the weapons and tools they need.

It’d be great news to have the Albanese government match or improve on Peter Dutton’s new defence policy, because a stronger bipartisan commitment would mean that, whoever wins, Australians will be more secure in the more dangerous world we face. 

There are ten days left for us to see if that happens.

This article was first published by The Australian Financial Review.