Australia will spend an extra $1.2bn on combating Islamic State in Iraq, expanding its presence elsewhere in the Middle East, and strengthening its ability to collect metadata for intelligence.
The cash committed in the 2015-16 budget to “keeping Australia safe” comes on top of the $1bn committed to defence last year.
The cost of Australia’s involvement in Iraq in fighting Isis is forecast as $403m over four years while $250m will be spent on “new intelligence measures” for Australian spy agencies.
Australia is spending a further $350m on expanding operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
Some $296m will be spent on information technology capabilities to collect information more effectively and $131m will be spent on helping telecommunication companies upgrade their systems to retain Australians’ metadata for two years.
The budget papers say the $131m is half of what the industry itself will have to spend. A further $23m will be given to the Attorney General’s Department and the Australian Crime Commission to implement and oversee the data retention. A further $22m is earmarked to “combat terrorist propaganda and counter violent extremism”.
Joe Hockey referenced Australia staring down “terrorist events” in Sydney and Melbourne in the first passage of his budget speech on Tuesday night and said keeping citizens safe was the “highest responsibility” of a government.
“As we know from events as recent as last weekend, the more work we do, the more likely we can prevent tragic incidents from happening in our community,” the treasurer said, referencing the arrest of terrorist suspects, though details of what they were reportedly planning are yet to be made public.
“The threat of terrorism is rising and ever-evolving and our response must be swift and uncompromising,” he said.
The government’s metadata laws passed the House of Representatives and Senate with Labor’s support, with the government arguing the laws were essential to combatting terrorism though they were criticised by various industry groups, including journalists, for potentially invading the privacy of citizens.
Australia’s mission in Iraq, called Operation Okra, is part of an international coalition to “disrupt and degrade” the Isis threat. Under the operation the air task group conducts air and combat support operations in Iraq and the special operations task group advises and assists Iraq’s security forces in their operations against Isis.
There is no timeline for Australia’s involvement in Iraq and the prime minister has previously said the objective is to “to work with the Iraqis, to work with the Kurds to ensure that they are able to keep their people safe, they are able to maintain reasonable control over their territory and they are able to ensure that [Isis], in their territory, is no more effective”.
Tony Abbott has said the mission is “fundamentally humanitarian” with the hope to drive Isis entirely out of Iraq.
He has also said the mission could take “many, many months” while the US secretary of State, John Kerry, said it could take years.
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