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Speeches
April 28, 2026
Tuesday 28 April 2026
***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***
I want to begin today with a trigger warning, just in case any members of the Expenditure Review Committee (ERC) are watching.
This speech may include quotes, references and praise for former generals, think tanks and even “washed-up bureaucrats.”
And while it is true that people like Sir Angus Houston, Professor Peter Dean, Jennifer Parker, Michael Shoebridge, and Peter Jennings were never members of an ERC, personally, I think their expertise is worth listening to with respect.
But if you are triggered by that, please change the channel now.
I’ve been inspired by a speech by the Deputy Chief of Army, Major General Chris Smith, recently reported by the ABC.
He lamented that in the modern ADF, there is a tendency to use language that obscures the reality of warfare. General Smith said:
"We don't talk about 'problems'. We have 'challenges and issues to meet, face and overcome'. We speak with unnecessary jargon and gibberish. It epitomises how Western militaries, including ours, have allowed modern managerial and advertising logic and double speak to pollute the profession."
If impenetrable and inaccessible language is a problem in the profession of arms, it’s an even bigger problem in the profession of politics.
We are all guilty of it.
We use clunky and vague language like “impactful projection” which means absolutely nothing to normal Australians.
We use weasel words like “uncertain” when we really mean dangerous.
We use technocratic phrases like this statement from the recent National Defence Strategy (NDS):
"The Government will progress these priorities in line with other strategic and enterprise-level reforms to ensure the Defence portfolio is agile, efficient, effective and has the requisite structures, processes, priorities and culture to deliver its mission."
This is not just a stylistic or philosophical critique.
It has real world consequences.
The main reason why it is so hard for Defence Ministers to get a dollar out of the ERC is because we have collectively failed to earn and sustain the social license for the defence spending we need to protect our country.
Against other worthy causes - some of which are more politically popular - defence keeps losing out.
If the Australian public knew how likely conflict is in our own region in the near future, and how ill-prepared we were for it, they would be marching in the streets demanding higher defence spending.
Instead of being honest with the Australian people about the threat and our preparedness, they are being lulled into a false sense of security.
Perversely, their government is telling them we have stabilised our international relationships and we’ve never spent more on defence.
If that’s really true, Australians will wonder why we need to increase defence spending any further or even set aside $368 billion to acquire nuclear propelled submarines.
Not unreasonably, Australians might assume that politicians who have access to classified intelligence and understand the nature of the threat would be spending whatever needs to be spent to keep us safe.
Indeed, the Prime Minister has often said that’s exactly what his government is doing.
There’s just one problem. It’s not true.
It is almost impossible to find a defence or national security expert who thinks we are spending enough or moving fast enough.
And the best informed among them, including two of the handpicked independent reviewers of the Albanese government's Defence Strategic Review (DSR), Sir Angus Houston and Professor Peter Dean, have publicly said we need to be spending at least three per cent of GDP.
Accounting tricks aside, we will never sustainably reach a real defence to GDP spend of three per cent if we are not honest with the Australian people about just how serious this historical moment is.
Research by the National Security College at ANU shows there is a strong public appetite for a more candid conversation about our national security challenges.
Their study revealed that a majority of Australians, 53 per cent, believe the government shares too little, or far too little information about security threats.
Primarily, it is the responsibility of government to make sure Australians are well-informed about these threats.
I commend the Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles for at least mentioning the People’s Republic of China and calling out their malign activities in his Press Club speech earlier this month.
But too often he and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy are lone voices in the Albanese Government willing to do this, and they are often contradicted by others, including the Prime Minister, who seem intent on reassuring us everything is fine.
Rote-learned platitudes about “stabilisation” and “disagreeing where we must” do the public a disservice.
This is a historical moment that demands more than lamely repeating anodyne talking points.
I am not asking the government to be reckless or inflammatory.
I understand and accept we have bilateral relationships which must be sensitively managed.
But the government should be more candid more often about just how dire our strategic circumstances are.
And they need not bear this burden alone.
As the ANU’s research shows, Australians are hungry for authoritative insight from trusted leaders about our security environment.
They don’t just want to hear from politicians about these issues.
In other democracies it is perfectly normal for senior intelligence and military leaders to speak candidly publicly about the threat environment and their preparedness.
Senior U.S. military leaders frequently testify before Congress to candidly share their assessments of the threats to their national security.
They are also far more open about their military capabilities and vulnerabilities.
An interested Australian can learn far more from open source material about America’s assessment of the strategic challenges we face, as well as their readiness to meet them, than they can from their own government.
And just at the time Australians deserve to know more, not less, about our military preparedness, the Albanese government is actively working to limit scrutiny and reduce transparency.
On Labor’s watch, Defence effectively stopped cooperating with the Australian National Audit Office as part of the Defence Major Projects Reports.
Information that was routinely provided under the previous government – and effectively used by the previous Opposition to hold us to account for delays in major projects – suddenly became too sensitive to share.
It got so bad that the Labor-chaired Joint Committee on Accounts and Audit recently threw up their hands and said there was no point reviewing these reports.
But independent scrutiny and parliamentary oversight of Defence spending and procurement is more important than it ever has been in today’s dangerous world.
The decisions we make and whether they can be delivered in a timely and cost effective way will determine the security of our country for generations.
While the new statutory defence committee is a very welcome addition to parliamentary oversight, it cannot and should not replace public forms of accountability.
Richard Marles should instruct his Department to again cooperate with the ANAO and allow the audit committee to conduct its important work.
Frankly though just restoring previous standards of transparency is not enough.
Australians are hungry for more candour about the dangers we face and they are entitled to it.
There is a model in Australia which could easily be adopted more widely.
ASIO Director General Mike Burgess has pioneered an annual threat assessment which maturely and responsibly brings the public into his confidence about threats to our security.
He can and often does say things that a Minister should not. And in the process he has raised Australians’ literacy about problems like foreign interference and espionage.
The ANU’s study has revealed that Australians seek more clarity from the government on our threat environment.
So, the question is, why doesn’t the Chief of the Defence Force do a similar annual speech to share with Australians the ADF’s assessment of our security challenges and the task we have to meet them?
And what is stopping the Director General of National Intelligence from doing the same? An annual threat assessment which is measured and calm but also direct and honest would help dramatically improve public understanding of the serious threats we face.
It would also assist in sustaining the social license needed for indispensable, multi-decade projects like AUKUS.
As Shadow Minister for Defence I accept I have a responsibility to contribute to this collective task.
I am a politician.
It is my job to convince the public that the blue team is better than the red team when it comes to defence and national security.
But my guiding light is the national interest.
I got into politics, and despite the challenges I remain in it today, because I want to help hand over the sovereign liberal democracy to my children that my generation inherited from a previous one.
I get out of bed every morning because I believe unless we make radical changes, we are at serious risk of failing that mission.
It is often said that national security portfolios like Defence are bipartisan.
But there are healthy and unhealthy types of bipartisanship.
There is robust bipartisanship which includes healthy scrutiny of government.
And there is cosy bipartisanship which is a conspiracy against the public.
Australians are increasingly showing they have little patience for this.
They are cynical about the major parties colluding to keep them in the dark.
I will never do anything which harms the national interest.
I will never needlessly politicise issues for the sake of it.
I will never engage in irresponsible alarmism, denigrate the efforts of our men and women in uniform, or do anything to ostracise or denigrate any of our diaspora communities.
But I also will not participate in the false reassurance of the public about the threats we face or our state of readiness just to avoid ruffling feathers.
That would be an abrogation of my responsibility to the people of Australia.
I am also not here to defend the record of the previous Coalition government.
We got some really big calls right, like AUKUS, returning defence spending to two per cent of GDP, and massive investments in cyber capability through programs like RedSpice.
But like any government we didn’t get everything right on defence, as this government seems to delight in pointing out.
If attacking a previous government made a country safer, we would be the safest country in the world.
Unfortunately it doesn’t. Only investing in and acquiring real military capability does.
If I do my job well as Shadow Minister, it should make the job of the actual Minister easier.
I intend to help make the case for real increases in defence spending from Opposition so the next time it is considered in ERC, it gets a better hearing.
Because this is not the sort of portfolio where you might selfishly want the government to fail.
I want them to succeed.
I don’t want Australians to have to wait for a Coalition government for significant increases in defence spending.
But that won’t happen if we don’t level with the Australian public.
So in that spirit I want to speak candidly and directly about the two biggest strategic challenges we face today.
The first is our strategic environment.
Much has been said about the death of the rules based order.
I am not as pessimistic as some of my colleagues.
I don’t think it is dead. But it is on life-support.
And I am not comforted by heartwarming stories of Indonesian “fisherpeople” observing Australia’s maritime boundaries.
Because you don’t have to travel much further north and ask a different group of fishermen for their perspective about maritime borders to get a very different view.
Try asking a Filipino fisherman whether he thinks maritime boundaries are being respected.
In his part of the world, they are not. In fact, their lives are at risk every time they venture into disputed territories like the Scarborough or Sabina Shoals, even within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone.
The coercive, dangerous and reckless conduct of the PRC Coast Guard and Maritime Militia is just one of many worrying data-points about a fraying international order.
Of course, the PRC’s non-compliance with the rules based order in the South China Sea goes far beyond fishing rights.
Its systematic attempt to change the facts on the ground by turning islands, atolls and other features into dual-use facilities with obvious military applications is deeply troubling.
As is the blatant disregard for rulings of international courts and tribunals.
In my book, when assessing the health of the rules based order, we should give much greater weight to the PRC’s non-compliance in the South China Sea than the respectful observance of Indonesian fishermen in the Timor or Arafura Seas.
While there has always been selective compliance with the rules based order, what has become increasingly clear in recent years is how for great powers, compliance with the rules is a discretionary choice.
Whether it is the PRC in the South China Sea, or Russia in Ukraine, or even sometimes our American friends, compliance with international rules is becoming something done only when it is convenient.
We should never endorse or welcome a return to a might is right world.
We should consistently stand up for our values and principles.
And we should advocate for an order that supports our interests and those of our likeminded partners.
But we should never be naive about it.
An appeal to international law will not prevent the PRC from attempting to annex Taiwan by force, should Xi Jinping make that choice in the future.
Nor can we solely rely on a great and powerful friend to protect us.
The post-cold war unipolar moment is over.
The security and economic dividend provided by unchallenged American military power is also disappearing.
We are now in a more anarchic international system which is bi-polar or multi-polar. Global public goods like open transit of international waters are under threat.
I welcome the refreshing dose of realism recently brought by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
First at Davos, and then in the Australian Parliament, he bluntly acknowledged the “global architecture” of the post-War era is breaking down.
He’s right. Multilateral institutions in particular are showing increasing signs of strain and dysfunction.
And Canada’s relationship with their most important ally – and ours – has been understandably altered by an unconventional US administration.
But I am less convinced by Prime Minister Carney’s proposed solution: “variable geometry”, or coalitions of middle powers with shared perspectives.
Don’t get me wrong: in an age of multilateral dysfunction, I am a big fan of minilateral institutions based on shared interests and values.
Five Eyes. AUKUS. The Quad. Our trilateral security dialogue with Japan and the United States.
These are typically far more nimble and aligned coalitions than unwieldy UN institutions and committees.
But every single one of Australia’s most meaningful minilateral groupings is anchored by the United States.
None would have any weight without at least partnering with the US in some way.
And it is impossible to imagine a coalition big or powerful enough to support our core national interests – like the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific – without the US as part of it.
So while I respect and understand why many Australians are confounded by the rhetoric and sometimes policies of the Trump Administration, the idea that we can make our way safely in the world without them is absurd.
You will struggle to find a parliamentarian more enthusiastic about the US alliance than me.
I’ve visited the US more times than I can count.
I lived there twice – attending primary school in Washington D.C. in the early ‘90s and returning to complete an internship on Capitol Hill in the late 2000s.
And yet even I recognise we can no longer just cling to the US alliance as our only or even primary security strategy.
The 2026 NDS is right to return to an emphasis on self-reliance.
Clearly, the US is not the same power that it was in the 1990s or 2000s. It may never be again.
The Trump Administration has been crystal clear that US national interests are their guiding light, and they are much less sentimental about alliances and values.
Their National Defence Strategy and consistent statements from senior Administration figures like Secretary of War Pete Hegseth make plain they expect more from allies, will no longer tolerate free riding, and that they have a narrower idea of their core security interests.
While they are not retreating from the world, and predictions the second Trump administration would be “isolationist” look crude and wrong, they clearly have less interest in the heavy lifting required to sustain international conventions and institutions than previous administrations.
At the same time, power in our region is being fundamentally reshaped by a revisionist PRC engaged in the largest peacetime build up of arms since WWII.
This arms build up is accompanied by menacing training exercises around Taiwan and unambiguous rhetoric about their intentions to reunify, by force if necessary.
History shows us great powers rarely amass militaries on this scale and then never use them.
And when authoritarian regimes' rhetoric increasingly aligns with their capability, we would be wise to take it seriously.
Australia’s task is to contribute to a credible, collective deterrent effort to prevent conflict in our region, and to be able to defend our interests if we fail to prevent it.
Our current levels of defence expenditure are not sufficient to achieve that.
We must invest much more, and more quickly, to be more self-reliant and less dependent on the US or anyone else.
Just one example of where this is critical is in sovereign production of missiles and munitions.
I recognise progress has been made with the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordinance Enterprise (GWEO).
But we still have limited stocks and are incredibly reliant on US supply chains for resupply.
Even before the war in Iran, US magazines of guided weapons were low.
They’ve just expended billions of dollars of munitions in that conflict and have backorders to re-stock that stretch into years.
A high-intensity conflict in our region would quickly drain our limited supplies and we could be joining the back of a very long American queue to restock them.
We must move much faster on sovereign missile production while we still can.
Not every recent geopolitical trend has been to our detriment. They have at least given us an opportunity to learn.
Ukraine and Iran both show the power of asymmetry.
Much more conventionally powerful militaries of Russia and even the United States have been at least partially thwarted in their strategic objectives by much smaller adversaries.
Defenders can use cheaper and more numerous drones and missiles to hold at risk and even destroy billion dollar platforms, as Ukraine has powerfully demonstrated by sinking Russia’s Black Sea fleet with maritime drones.
We are a middle power in a tough neighbourhood dominated by a major power with far greater conventional military capability than we can ever hope to field.
But we can embrace the same philosophy of asymmetry to cause them doubt about putting our interests at risk.
To be fair to the government, investment in these capabilities is a feature of NDS 2026.
I welcome the increased emphasis on drones in particular.
But they are still not moving fast enough, nor spending enough.
It is telling that two of the autonomous platforms the government most frequently likes to boast about are the Ghost Shark and the Ghost Bat.
I’m excited by the potential of these platforms too.
But they both got their start under Peter Dutton as Defence Minister, four years ago.
In that time there has been a revolution in drone warfare.
Australia is yet to embrace either the opportunities of this revolution – or the risks.
In particular, our integrated air and missile defence is far from adequate to protect our northern bases, major cities or critical infrastructure.
This was a key recommendation of the DSR in 2023. Yet it was pushed off into the never, never in the 2024 NDS.
Finally, it has returned as a priority in NDS26. But we have lost two years, and time is running out.
We can navigate our way through these turbulent times – but only with a real, significant and urgent increase in defence spending.
Pretending we are now spending three per cent of GDP isn’t going to fix it.
Accounting tricks to reclassify military pensions as defence expenditure doesn’t make us safer.
In fact it may make things worse by reassuring the Australian public that we are spending enough when we clearly are not.
It may even invite greater scrutiny from defence sceptics and bad faith actors who will use the inflated numbers to suggest taxpayers’ money would be better spent elsewhere.
At the very least it warrants proper explanation.
The Albanese government’s claim Australia now spends 2.8% of GDP on NATO measures, rising to 3% in the early to mid-2030s, was explained by a single sentence in the National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program. The same sentence.
No table. No detailed breakdown. No raw numbers. Just one sentence of narrative.
It obscures more than it reveals. And it treats the public with contempt when they deserve the honesty and transparency this historical moment demands.
We all know that when a Government or a business changes its accounting method, there’s probably something they are trying to hide.
That brings me to our second strategic challenge: AUKUS.
I am an AUKUS true believer.
A nuclear powered submarine provides an island-nation like ours, with strategic vulnerabilities from a long supply chain, dependent on maritime chokepoints, with unparalleled long range stealth strike capability.
It puts doubt in the mind of a potential adversary like no other platform can.
And the Virginia class submarine is a generation ahead of its rivals, a far more lethal capability than we could ever normally aspire to operate this quickly.
I don’t think Washington is going to walk away from delivering AUKUS.
It is in their national interest, as the Pentagon recently concluded.
And through facilities like HMAS Stirling, Pine Gap and others – Australia is an indispensable partner to the US in the Indo-Pacific.
But I am not blind or deaf.
To deliver AUKUS we have to overcome serious obstacles.
There are enormous risks.
The submarine industrial base. Workforce. Infrastructure upgrades.
A potential capability gap with the Collins class life of type extension.
We do ourselves no favours by not soberly and honestly contemplating them.
If we try to deliver AUKUS without quickly and meaningfully increasing defence spending, we will cannibalise the other services, as Sir Angus Houston has warned.
Standing up AUKUS is like starting a fourth service, as Peter Jennings and Michael Shoebridge have argued.
Yet as a per cent of GDP, the Albanese government has over the last four years failed to shift the dial on defence spending to make room for AUKUS.
The only way to deliver AUKUS without lifting defence spending is to make cuts to the other services.
That’s exactly what this government has done.
The fourth Squadron of F-35s.
Infantry fighting vehicles.
Self-propelled howitzers.
Hunter class frigates.
Military satellites.
Spartan aircraft.
Even reservists have had their days of service cut.
And that’s only what we know about.
It was disappointing Minister Marles refused to provide an outline of the capabilities being cut, de-scoped or deferred when he appeared here two weeks ago.
And that’s before we get to inexplicably deferred decisions like where our East Coast submarine base will be.
While any one of these cuts and deferrals may be able to be justified in isolation, together they paint a picture.
They are only necessary because this government is trying to deliver future AUKUS capability on a pre-AUKUS defence budget.
That means cutting capability which was in many cases set to arrive in the near future, for capability that won’t be received for years.
What’s worse are the cuts to sustainment and capability upgrade budgets which undermine current capabilities.
And while the government solemnly repeats the mantra that the ten year warning time for conflict is gone, they have a defence budget that back-ends the modest real increase in defence spending they are offering to the early 2030s, outside the forward estimates.
They are behaving as though we have more warning time than ever.
As Jennifer Parker has said, the problem is not the strategy, it is the funding.
And as Richard Marles has said, strategy without money is just hot air.
As our European friends remind us, if a crisis occurs unexpectedly and you have failed to build defence industry and capability in peacetime, it cannot be just turned on on demand.
It takes years to build.
I do not agree with the harshest AUKUS critics who believe the Virginia Class Submarines will never arrive, or that there are simple and easy alternatives to just purchase “off the shelf”.
There is no special aisle at Aldi where you can just pick up a submarine on a dry-dock that was built without an order, just hoping for a buyer.
Nor do I believe that we can responsibly and sustainably pursue a “plan B” alternative submarine.
We are flat out procuring nuclear-propelled submarines as it is – we can’t simultaneously pursue any more alternatives.
But there are supplementary capabilities that we should explore acquiring that may help fill any capability gaps that arise.
A nuclear-powered submarine does many things. But one of the most important is long range, stealth strike.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz shows how events a long way from Australia can have profound impacts on our economic and national security.
Our primary security threat is not an invasion of our homeland.
It is coercion leveraging our supply chain vulnerabilities.
If we think closure of the Hormuz has been uncomfortable, just imagine a scenario where the Straits of Malacca are.
Australia must have the ability to deter coercion like this.
I do not believe it is responsible to run a defence procurement process from Opposition.
We simply do not have the resources to run it outside government
Anthony Albanese learned this the hard way.
As Opposition Leader speaking to the Lowy Institute just months before the 2022 election, he promised to fit the Collins class submarines with Tomahawk missiles.
There was just a minor problem, as Labor later discovered in government.
The type of Tomahawk that could be deployed on Collins ceased production a decade earlier. And retrofitting it to deliver them would be prohibitively costly.
So I will not make the same mistake and promise on behalf of the Opposition to purchase a particular platform or munition lightly.
But I am calling on the government to consider other supplementary capabilities that could deliver a similar long range, stealth strike capability.
One example suggested by experts like Peter Jennings, Marcus Hellyer and Michael Shoebridge of Strategic Analysis Australia is the B-21 Raider.
In a paper for the Institute of Public Affairs in 2024 they suggested Australia should examine acquiring a fleet of B-21s.
It is a maturing design, scheduled to enter service next year for the US Air-Force.
Its reported cost, while not cheap, is more affordable than a nuclear submarine.
It also requires a much smaller crew to operate.
Its reported range is impressive. It can carry a significant payload.
Now I realise – in the age of missiles and drones – another US-origin, expensive, crewed platform seems incongruous with the lessons of Ukraine and Iran.
But Australia’s geography is different.
Our primary theatres for potential conflict are thousands of kilometres away.
B-21s operating at altitude means it is not vulnerable to the kinds of cheap capabilities being fielded in Ukraine.
There will likely always be a need for crewed capabilities alongside autonomous ones.
It is not yet clear whether the US would be willing to share the B-21 with Australia, or how we would fit into their production schedule.
However, they did export the F-35A to Australia and if they are willing to share the crown jewel of the US Navy, a nuclear submarine, we are better placed than any other ally to ask.
Now to be clear, B-21s were not recommended by the DSR. But that was three years ago, before President Trump was elected for his second term.
Since then our strategic environment has only further deteriorated and concerns about a capability gap have grown louder.
I am not here banging the lectern, demanding the government place an order tomorrow.
I am not even saying a future Coalition government would buy them.
But I am asking the government to take a careful second look at this.
Only the government can know whether the RAAF is well-placed to acquire these planes and put them into service.
Perhaps there are good reasons why a B-21 does not work for Australia.
If that is the case, I hope the government is very closely examining other similar options which could fill this serious potential capability gap.
Because I do not want Australia to enter the moment of maximum peril in the late 2020s and early 2030s without this critical deterrent capability.
It is the honour of my life to be appointed Shadow Minister for Defence.
Every area of public policy is important. When we get it wrong, there are real consequences.
If we get our tax policy a bit wrong that’s not good – but it is not existential.
If we get defence policy wrong, it is.
Future generations will harshly judge us if we don’t get the big calls right now.
I’m passionate about this portfolio because it matters. It is real.
It will determine whether we can preserve our way of life or not.
Our men and women in uniform are on the front line of defending our way of life every day.
The very least we owe them and every Australian is the honest truth about the dangers we face, and our best efforts to equip them for it.
I look forward to holding this Government to account in the Defence portfolio, including at Senate Estimates - to deliver the defence force Australia urgently needs.
Thank you.
ENDS