00:02Obviously, Richard Miles, like everyone, is confronting a vastly more transactional,
00:07a sometimes unpredictable Trump administration. And that, of course, has had real implications
00:13for the debates both here in Australia and internationally about what is the best way
00:17forward. Now, interestingly, you see with the Trump administration two things. One,
00:22a willingness to use power and two, a disregard for rules. In fact, the Trump administration
00:27is often pushing allies like Australia to spend more on hard power whilst showing, you know,
00:33fairly sneering contempt towards the so-called rules-based order. The response to that has
00:39also been interesting. You see some analysts and the Greens saying the response to that should be
00:43to ditch the US alliance entirely. You also have a slightly different response coming from other
00:48often respected players like Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, who say in the face of
00:53this unpredictability, it's time to end the fiction of the rules-based orders and work together
00:59informally through this so-called balance of middle powers to try and constrain the behaviour of the
01:04often badly behaved big powers, namely China and the United States. But Richard Miles really pushed
01:11back against that today without directly naming Mark Carney or any of the other people who are
01:17advocating this, pointing out two things in his mind. One, yes, the US is, you know, behaving a bit
01:24differently, but it still remains totally indispensable to any democratic nation, including democratic nations
01:31in this country who want to balance military power. There's no substitute for US military force if
01:37you're trying to do that. And two, if Australia wants to retain the ability to protect itself, it's going
01:42to need to depend on the rules surviving in some shape. Mr Miles cautioned, we shouldn't be too quick
01:49to ditch the rules just because they're being sorely tested, because middle powers like Australia
01:54are going to find themselves in an awfully difficult situation if power alone becomes the determinant of
02:00who gets a say. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
02:03Now, I understand US frustrations that allies might seek to free ride on this US leadership or believe
02:12that somehow the order acts as a substitute for hard power. It does not. Any rules-based order can only
02:20prevent conflict when it is underpinned by the hard power necessary for collective deterrence.
02:28Australia must contribute to this, and we are. And we will work with all our like-minded partners to
02:34better shape our region's strategic trajectory. We will double down on middle power cooperation,
02:41but let's also be clear. There is no effective balance of power in the Indo-Pacific absent the
02:48continued presence of the United States.
02:52Stephen, what are the main shifts in defence spending in this document, and what does it
02:57mean?
02:58Look Jade, many of the shifts that we see in this document really have been coming for a
03:03few years, and many of them were articulated in the last defence strategy back in 2024.
03:07This time around, there's a less dramatic shift. They're really being bedded down instead.
03:12In brief, and simplifying it a bit, there's an awful lot more money for things like submarines.
03:18Obviously the AUKUS program is continuing and is fabulously expensive by some metrics.
03:23You've also got more money into things like guided missiles and into the communication systems
03:30that are necessary to sustain modern warfare. There's also more money, unsurprisingly, in an
03:36era where we've seen drones used to great effect, both in the Ukraine war and now of course in Iran.
03:42More money for both countering drones and investing in Australia's own drone capabilities. These are the
03:48technologies the government thinks that are going to be necessary for us to fight in any
03:53potential future wars. But the response from the coalition has been fairly cutting. Whilst it's
03:58withholding judgement on the actual numbers here, until it's got a better grasp of exactly what's in
04:03the document, James Patterson, the shadow defence minister, says the government has really only paid
04:09lip service to drones so far. And the programs that have been unrolled so far by the government
04:16largely come from the former coalition government. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
04:21It is the right direction, but it's four years since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia,
04:26and a couple of years now since we've had conflict in the Middle East. It's been very clear we're in
04:30the age of missiles and drones, and the government has been slow to move on this. The two biggest
04:34achievements that they like to boast about when it comes to drones is the ghost bat and the ghost shark.
04:40Now both of those drones, one underwater, one in the air, was started under Peter Dutton as
04:43defence minister under the previous government four years ago. So in terms of new capability
04:47that they've actually made decisions on, there's very little on the ground.
04:51And has the government made any cuts as part of this plan?
04:55It has, Jade, although the government's calling it reprioritised spending,
05:00which is probably then a bit of a semantic question. I mean, the broad picture is clear,
05:04the amount of money being poured in total into defence is going up. It's going up a lot,
05:0953 billion or so over a decade. So it's clear there is more money overall going into defence.
05:15But there are cuts. There are some programs that are getting cuts cut as a result of this,
05:20and that money is then being poured into these other new priorities. Now, there's about 5 billion
05:25that's being cut over the next four years, and then it rises to about 10 billion in cuts
05:29over the full decade. We don't really know much about what is being cut. There's only one example we've got,
05:35and that is the Spartan aircraft, a fleet of about 10 aircraft that are apparently quite expensive,
05:41that are used to ferry troops in particular around places like the Pacific. The government thinks
05:46it can be done more cheaply, and that's the sort of cut I imagine it's making as it tries to
05:51really
05:51plough money into the offensive capabilities and defensive capabilities that it needs in this vastly more
05:58uncertain era.
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