Once again, the Australian government has delivered exactly the funding it promised in the 2016 defence white paper and 2020 defence strategic update (DSU). If the government was willing to recommit to the white paper’s funding line in the depths of the Covid-19 recession, it was very unlikely to walk away from it now that the economy is recovering faster than expected.

 

As shown in ASPI’s 2021–2022 Defence budget brief, the consolidated funding line (including both the Department of Defence and the Australian Signals Directorate) is $44.6 billion, which is real growth of 4.1%. It’s the ninth straight year of real growth and, according to the DSU’s funding model, that will continue until the end of the decade.

Last year, defence funding hit 2.04% of GDP, meeting the government’s promise to restore the defence budget to 2% of GDP by 2020–2021....MORE

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