The Coalition is speeding up its timetable to increase spending on defence to 2% of GDP, three years earlier than originally planned.
To fulfil a commitment the Coalition made to voters at the 2013 election, the 2017 budget sets out a path to 2% GDP spending on defence by 2020-21. The 2020-21 allocation of $42bn is up from $34.6bn next financial year.
Despite this, the budget books $304m in defence savings over 10 years from a total spend of $150.6bn. The savings will come from “reductions in the numbers of consultants and contractors used in defence as well as limiting the use of non-operational overseas and business travel”.
The Coalition stressed its credentials on defence, which got high billing in the “fairness, security, opportunity” budget.
The treasurer, Scott Morrison, called defence and security “the first duty of a national government”. The defence minister, Marise Payne, and the minister for defence industry, Christopher Pyne, described it as “the Turnbull government’s first priority” in a joint statement.
Part of the additional funding will go towards the navy shipbuilding program – $89bn over 10 years – and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.
The government will cut $303m from the foreign aid budget over two years from 2019-20 by pausing indexation until 2021-22. Treasury says savings from the aid budget will be redirected to “policy priorities”.
The child development organisation Plan International had urged the government not to cut aid spending in favour of national security after a pre-budget announcement that $321.4m would be spent over four years on the Australian federal police.
Plan International’s chief executive, Ian Wishart, said Australia’s aid spending had already been cut but $11bn in the 2014 budget and a further 20% in the 2015 budget. $224m was cut in the 2016 budget.
In a statement released before the budget, Wishart said: “If we see further cuts, these will be made at a time when more people in eastern Africa are starving than the entire population of Australia.”
Labor had already called on the government not to further cut the aid budget, saying Australia’s international development program contributed to security and stability in the Asia-Pacific.
In addition to the $321.4m boost for the AFP, which Morrison said would “ensure the AFP can continue to lead the charge against terrorism, organised crime, child exploitation and other crimes”, $7.2m over four years will go to the Australia New Zealand counter-terrorism committee.
“We will continue to ensure Operation Sovereign Borders has the resources needed to do its job,” Morrison said in his speech. “I know that stopping the boats was something many said could not be done. What others mocked as a slogan, we turned into an outcome.”
The budgets for foreign and domestic intelligence agencies Asis and Asio were not disclosed in the budget papers.
The 2017 budget allocates $138.3m and $92.9m over two years for diplomatic engagement and security costs in the embassies in Kabul and Baghdad respectively. Some $100m will be earmarked for development assistance in Iraq for humanitarian needs and to help prevent a resurgence of conflict and $80m to support Afghanistan’s “transition to stability and self-reliance”.
