If there's a government agency that could be declared a winner in this year's federal budget, the Defence Department appears to have a distinct "W" next to its name.
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It wasn't just a small win, but one worth more than $3 billion. That's how much the defence budget grew this year, a rise in funding that took the nation's annual military spend beyond $42 billion, or more than 2 per cent of GDP.
As the Australian Strategic Policy Institute pointed out recently, the government decided to increase the defence budget despite the COVID-19 economic crash. The spending will continue to grow if the government follows its own new defence strategy, which shows that by 2029-30 Australia will pour $73.7 billion into sharpening and maintaining its military chops. It's hard to see other portfolios being favoured with such generosity.
The reason for the growing spend, of course, is that the Asia-Pacific is forecast to become more unstable and there is a shift in the regional order forcing Australia to reconsider how to defend itself. It remains to be seen whether, over time, the public will agree this is a good rationale for a larger defence budget.
This confusion is inexcusable if Australia's defence spending is to grow at such an extraordinary scale.
The magnitude of the nation's military spending hasn't inspired much in the way of clarity from the government about its defence projects on a few critical points. In Senate estimates last week, we learnt that an $80 billion price tag for Australia's new Attack class submarines - the largest procurement program in the nation's history - went undisclosed for three years. As recently as April, the government described it as a $50 billion project. You know, just $30 billion less.
Defence officials explained that different ways of measuring costs accounted for the two figures. In short, one factored in inflation, the other didn't. Defence Minister Linda Reynolds claimed this was not confusing for the Australian public, which presumably can tell when the government is speaking in 2017 dollars and future dollars by itself.
The government also took two years to announce a $10 billion increase in the cost of its new Hunter class advanced guided missile frigates, which will now total $45 billion. Again, earlier this year, the government described it as a $35 billion program.
It was Labor senator Penny Wong who put the spotlight on the timeline of the disclosures in estimates. She brought her line of questioning to a point: "You don't think transparency with people is important?" she asked officials.
Senator Reynolds took on notice the questions from Senator Wong about the reasons for the delayed disclosures. We can only hope the answers are better than those being offered in the hearing.
What's clear enough at the moment is that, whatever the cause, this confusion is inexcusable if Australia's defence spending is to grow at such an extraordinary scale in the next decade. The cash involved raises expectations not only for Defence to deliver and maintain new military equipment. It raises the stakes should the government fail to give a straightforward, clear account of the money it's spending. It can say it has been transparent about defence spending all it wants. The public doesn't have time to calculate future inflation rates when presented with costs in today's dollars, and the government knows it.
If the public feels like it is being taken for fools, it will look much less kindly on that whopping $73.7 billion leaving everyone's bank accounts in 2030.