From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinaming it. It's Thursday, April twenty four, twenty twenty five. The social media feeds of young Australian men are brimming with posts by masculinity influencers and its wreaking havoc on their opinions of women. A new study shows the content also negatively
influences young men's health choices on substances like steroids. The Climate two hundred political funding group has pumped another fifty thousand dollars into the campaign of teal Zoe Daniel, a move suggesting the election race in the Victorian seat of Goldstein is tightening. You can read all the latest from the campaign trail right now at the Australian dot com dot au. Peter Dutton has unveiled the coalition's defense policy with just over a week to go in the election campaign.
The opposition leader has promised to spend twenty billion dollars on new defense capabilities, but he's been vague on the details. So will a national security cash splash help his prospects at the polling booth. That's today's episode in march Elbridge, Colby Sat down for a very public job interview.
The hearing will come to order. Thank you all for being here this morning. The committee meet.
Colby was Donald Trump's pick for a top job at the US Department of Defense, and for hours he was quizzed by members of a United States Senate committee about his views on a range of issues from foreign policy to defense spending.
If confirmed, mister Colby would oversee the developments of policy and strategy for the Department of Defense. He would assume these responsibilities during the most dangerous security environment since World War Two.
Elbridge Colby got the job, and his laser focus on Beijing means Australia's defense strategy hasn't escaped his scrutiny. He wants Australia to ratchet up defense spending in a big way to three percent of GDP, given the inherent threat posed by our proximity to China.
You know, the idea of empowering our Australian in some sense, perhaps our closest ally in the world. They've been with us, even in our less advisable wars. As the way I put it, it's a great idea for them to have a taxa.
The labor government has so far resisted pressure from the United States to boost defense spending, but on Wednesday the Coalition went some of the way to answering the call.
Australia has an important role to play on the global stage and in our own region, and today we make a very significant announcement of over twenty billion dollars to defense over the course of the next five years, which will bring spending up to two point five percent of GDP.
CAM Opposition leader Peter Dunton unveiled the coalition's long away to defense policy in Western Australia on Wednesday. So what does twenty billion dollars bias well Christen.
It helps bias nuclear submarines, It helps buy Australia long range missiles that can be fired from the shore here. It helps pay for a lot more people to join the forces because they're not meeting their retention targets. So really there's a whole scope of things that this money
could be put towards where it's very much needed. So this is a long term pledged by the Coalition to lift defense spending from two percent of GDP to two point five and five years and the big one to lift it to three percent of GDP in ten years now, that is a quality of difference. That's a lot more money.
Cameron Stewart is the Australian's chief international correspondent.
But you're going to need this sort of money to pay for this equipment because you're nuclear submarines for example, are going to cost an eye watering amount of money. And so without actually having an increase in defense spending a substantial one, the ADF would actually go backwards in its capability rather than forward. So this is really, I think something that is fairly essential in the longer term.
Of course, Cam this benchmark of three percent of GDP is advocated by NATO and endorsed by the United States, but neither of the major parties have plans to fund defense at that level in the near or medium term. Is it actually necessary?
It's a debate which has changed a lot in recent years because of China's hegemonic activity in the South China Sea. It's sort of buying off of Pacific island nations and its general aggression in the region. Frankly, and then of course you put on top of that the Ukraine War and the increasing alliance between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. And on top of all of that, you've got a very uncertain US administration now with Donald Trump, where alliances
have become much more transactional. And so you put it all together and there's a real argument now in a way, I think there wasn't five years ago to lift this fence spending to a very high level, like three percent of GDP. But I think really there has to be a qualitative change in the debate about defense spending now simply because of global events. And that is a view shared by an enormous amount of very respective experts, from Kim Beasley to Dennis Richardson to Peter Dean. Almost every
senior defense analyst thinks this is necessary. And you know they're not making this stuff up, and there really are genuine threats out there. But as you say, this requires sacrifice on the part of governments to make choices that will hurt other portfolios.
Yeah, Peter Dutton was quite vague on what defense capability is. This twenty billion dollars will buy.
I don't think there's a government in our history that's been elected outlining what contracts they'll sign in relation to defense. The decisions about who we purchase from is not something that we've made from our position.
And he hasn't provided any clarity on where that money will come from. That's attracted criticism from the Prime Minister, who says Labor has been transparent about defense and other costs. Is this the kind of detailed voters should be hearing ten days before they go to the polls?
Well, I think certainly Peter Dutton should have released his defense policy weeks if not months ago. Frankly, I mean it's a defense policy that really marks the coalition has been more serious about national security than the Abenese government, so you think that would be a selling point, especially the time when we've had Chinese navorships encircling Australia, We've had questions about Rassia seeking access to Indonesian bases for warplanes.
We've had a lot of stuff happening in the national security space, and I would have thought that this would really help Dart until have put the policy out far earlier. Surprised that A it's been put out so late, but b as you mentioned, he was very vague about the costings on it, saying that non recurrent spending could be used towards funding that increase in defense spending. But the fact is that's not going to be nelly enough by itself, because you certainly don't get to three percent of GDP
for defense without cutting other portfolios at some point. Now, Peter Dutton, obviously political reasons, does not want to go down that path. He doesn't want to be criticized for cutting other programs just ahead of an election. But what it meant in the end was it all sounded fairly vague. It almost sounded aspirational from the Coalition rather than something that has been thought out carefully with dollars and cents.
And that is the political weakness for Dunden of the way that he's put this program together and the way he's sold it.
The campaign so far has been fought on cost of living relief. Will this talk of defense capability and percentages of GDP cut through for voters on May three camp?
Traditionally, the defense and foreign affairs and national security don't tip the scales in an election unless a major conflict is actually been fought, and I don't think it will tip the scales in this situation, and not least because the Coalition has put out the policy so late as well, so it's not going to reverberate very much. Look, I think in the end cost of living pressures will be
more influential with voters. But look, there will be at the margins some benefit, I think to the coalition, because I think there is a cohortive voters out there who are uncomfortable with global events and the way that they've turned around in recent times, and who are uncomfortable with the clear lack of preparedness of the Australian Defense Force and the fact that also a lot of light minded countries around the world are actually increasing their defense spending
far faster than the Labor government has promised it will increase. A whole bunch of countries in Europe are really lifting their defense spending now. So Australia looks like a lagged at the moment, and given global events, I think that's a bad look.
Coming up. Why the aspiring Defense Minister was on the defensive. On Wednesday. On Friday, Anzac Day, Australians will gather to commemorate the lives lost during the First World War and pay their respects to servicemen and women who've served in
other conflicts and peacekeeping missions. At the Defending Australia conference in Adelaide last month, Shadow Defense Minister Andrew Hasty, himself a former troop commander, invoked this spirit to explain how the ADFS recruitment crisis might be solved.
We are having a recruiting crisis and we're slipping behind each year that goes by. I think we need to challenge this generation of Australians to service fairy old school values of serving your country, defending your country, being part of this great Anzac tradition which has been handed down to it. So I think that's really important.
But in twenty eighteen, Andrew Hasty was singing a different song.
And my personal view is that the fighting DNA of a close combat unit is best preserved when it's exclusively male. Now that's not a popular view, but you ask my personal view there it is.
On Wednesday, at the highly anticipated launch of the Liberal Party's Defense policy, those comments came back to haunt the aspiring Defense minister. Do you think women should serve in combat roles in the ADF? Are you saying that women have lower stands? Is that what you're saying is that right, that women aren't strong enough to deal with that sort
of combat you described. Hasty has walked those comments back somewhat to align with the Liberal Party's official position, but he won't say if his personal views have changed.
Yeah, the coalition policy is that all combat roles are open to women. It's been a long standing position. The one thing that we will insist on his high standards because in combat, there's no points for second place, so we need to be able to win every fight that we go into. That's why we'll uphold high standards.
Thank you, cam Andrew. Hasty has been noticeably absent from the Coalition's election campaign so far, with some people speculating that's because of these resurfaced comments about women in combat roles. This question about personal views took up a decent chunk of that long press conference, and he didn't exactly stick the landing. Is that damaging for the coalition ten days out from the election end at a time when Newspolt data shows women voters are abandoning the opposition?
Look, it doesn't help. It was a fairly awkward press conference. I thought. I'm not sure Hasty handled it in the best possible way. He's been fairly straightforward about his changed views on that and The bottom line with this, of course, is that many women do serve in frontline combat roles already. They're fighter pilots, they fly Air force hercules in war zones, they press buttons that fire torpedoes on submarines and on warships.
You know, he's talking about hand to hand combat in units, and that's always been a big debate within Defense Force itself. But look, Hasty has said, look, this is very clear in our women in frontline and combat roles is absolutely what we support. So yes, it's a bit awkward for him because he didn't say that seven years ago. But I don't think it's a deal breaker for a lot of people. I think he's clarified it to a reasonable extent. But it certainly was an awkward moment for him.
Can beggars really be choosers when our Defense Force is in the grips of a very real recruitment crisis.
This goes back to money. Really. It's always been a cyclical problem in Australia because the moment you get a mining boom, for example, all of the technical experts within the ADF tend to run off to better paid mining jobs.
They've got to actually throw a lot of money at recruitment, and that's simply something they're going to have to do because not only is there a retention crisis right now, but this is going to get way worse because they need to recruit many thousands more to actually complete the August nuclear submarine project of actually building nuclear submarines eventually in Australia. I mean that is a massive national enterprise. It will require tons more people to join the force
and their miles of that at the moment. So unless they throw a lot of money and a lot of effort at everyone, men, women, anyone, especially technically skilled workers, we are going to be in real trouble.
Cameron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. You can read all our experts, reporting and analysis on defense anytime at the Australian dot com dot au