In its 2020–21 defence budget, the government hasn’t moved away from its funding commitment in the three months since it released the 2020 defence strategic update. And why would it? If you’re looking like being $213.7 billion in the red for the coming year, stiffing the defence portfolio of a few billion isn’t going to get the budget back in the black.
Between the Department of Defence and the Australian Signals Directorate, defence funding for 2020–21 will be $42,746 million. At 2.19% of GDP, that comfortably meets the government’s commitment to grow the defence budget to 2% by 2020–21. With the hit to GDP caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a possibility that the defence budget could have got to 2% already in 2019–20, but it fell just short, at 1.98%...MORE
