Sunrise’s Nat Barr confronts Defence Minister Richard Marles over $12 billion military boost amid AUKUS review

Australia’s Defence Minister has addressed pumping $12 billion into the nation’s defence force as he assured the public that AUKUS was “proceeding at pace”.

Richard Marles’ appearance on Sunrise on Monday came after the Albanese government announced it was injecting $12 billion into a submarine and shipbuilding facility in Western Australia.

The US has been demanding for months that Australia lifts its defence spending as the Pentagon reviews the controversial AUKUS deal, amid President Donald Trump’s “America First” rhetoric

Nat Barr asked Marles if the $12 billion would “save the deal”.

“AUKUS is proceeding at pace and AUKUS is proceeding well,” Marles said.

“There is a review in America, which we welcome, just as there was a review when the new British government came into power last year, just as we undertook review when we came to office back in 2022.

“It’s a natural step for an incoming government to take, to work out how you can do AUKUS better.”

Marles, who was recently in Washington, said US politicians were optimistic about AUKUS.

“When I was in Washington, people have been really positive about what AUKUS represents for Australia, but what AUKUS represents for the United States, because this is in the strategic interests of the US,” Marles said.

“It does provide the US with an opportunity to operate from HMAS Sterling, south of Perth.

“The Henderson Defence Precinct we announced yesterday will be an invaluable source of sustainment and maintenance of nuclear-powered submarines going forward.”

Barr pointed out that the $12 billion falls short of the 3.5 per cent of GDP — the figure the Trump administration has been pressuring the Australian federal government to hit.

Barr asked if the $12 billion represented a backroom deal made by Marles in his meetings in Washington.

“Obviously none of that happened in the meetings I had in the US,” Marles said.

“Look, the way in which we’ve gone about funding our defence force is to look at what Australia needs, look at our strategic challenges, the kind of defence force we need meet that, and then resourcing it.

“If you include what we announced yesterday, (we’re) seeing an additional $70 billion over the decade being spent on defence relative to when we came to government back in 2022, that in turn is the biggest peacetime increase in Australia’s defence spending in our history.

Barr pressed Marles again on the spend, adding Trump has said he wanted the 3.5 per cent increase in spending.

Marles continued: “People can focus on a number .... The coalition did this at the last election and then when they get the first question about what they’ll spend it on, they actually couldn’t answer it.

“That’s not what we do. We are thinking about the defence capabilities that our country needs and actually that’s what America is thinking about as well.

“It’s what every country does when they think about how to engage in defence spending.”

Marles explained if you based the GDP spend on NATO calculations, then prior to yesterday’s announcement, it was at 2.8 per cent.

“We will be focused on what kind of defence force we need, and we will go and resource it. The Prime Minister has been very clear about that.

“That’s a method that is well understood by the United States and they can see that it is yielding results in Australia.”

Finally, Barr asked if Prime Minster Anthony Albanese will have a face-to-face meeting with US President Donald Trump next week.

Marles answered: “I’m not going to speculate on that. I’m sure at some point in the not-too-distant future there will be a meeting between our two leaders.

“As you know, they spoke on the telephone just a few days ago, and they’ve spoken on the telephone on a number of occasions.

“I’m sure at some point you will see a meeting between our two leaders but what I would say is that there’s been deep engagement as you would expect between Australia and the United States since Donald Trump was inaugurated as the President of the US.

“We are very positive about the way that relationship is going, in a defence sense, but also we’re looking at how we can do more economically, more in terms of investing in each other’s countries.”