“The Treasurer placed defence inside the Budget’s ‘Resilience and reform’ pillar, alongside fuel resilience, critical minerals and the Future Made in Australia agenda. The framing is right. Economic security, economic resilience and national security are now one and the same. On the policy architecture for that broader security pillar, the Government should be acknowledged and praised. The 2026 National Defence Strategy (NDS) and the updated Integrated Investment Program (IIP) describe a force built for the Strategy of Denial, anchored to AUKUS Pillar 1, and funded across the decade at $887 billion. That is one of the largest peacetime defence investment commitments in Australian history. On the appropriation behind it, the work has barely begun…”
“Defence is buying a future force, and it is doing so by accepting that the ADF will be able to do less today. Fewer spare parts in stockholdings. Less training intensity. Less platform availability. Less ammunition consumption. Less time at sea, in the air and in the field. The 2026 NDS asks the present force to carry the deterrence load through the optimal pathway window to the 2030s and to carry it with less.”
“Behind the headline numbers sits a structural feature this year’s [ASPI] report assesses in detail. Across the 12 capability investment priorities (CIPs) that organise the IIP, typically 75 to 80 per cent of the next decade’s investment remains unapproved and back-loaded into the same decade the NDS itself identifies as Australia’s window of greatest strategic risk. This is kicking the can down the road.”
https://www.aspi.org.au/report/the-cost-of-defence-aspi-defence-budget-brief-2026-2027/