ELLEN RANSLEY: Provocative Tasman Sea war games highlight need to bolster defence spending, warn experts

Underneath the technicalities of who knew what, and when, about China’s war games in our own backyard lies a glaring problem Australia must quickly reckon with: we have failed a crucial test, and we cannot afford to do so again.

To avoid making the same mistakes again, we must rapidly increase our defence spending, prioritise our maritime vulnerabilities and stand up to China when it deliberately provokes Australia.

Much of the political fight in Canberra this week has been about the specifics, and these are valid questions.

But China’s presence in and around Australia’s Economic Exclusion Zone over the past fortnight, including the war gaming in the Tasman Sea, shows that China is very clearly testing the waters at a time of significant global uncertainty.

While Beijing may not have breached international law, as the Albanese Government has been at pains to point out, China has ventured deep into the Tasman Sea – where they have no real business being – to carry out live-fire exercises underneath a busy air corridor without bothering to notify through the appropriate channels ahead of time.

Given the three-vessel flotilla, which may or may not be accompanied by a nuclear submarine, now appear to be circumnavigating Australia — as Defence Minister Richard Marles said was “completely possible” — it’s clear an increasingly aggressive China is projecting its military muscle.

Mr Marles has called for calm, but ASPI defence analyst Malcolm Davis said all the indicators and warnings are “flashing red” and the Government must respond to that, rather than pretend there’s “nothing to see”,

“China has very definitively and very deliberately undertaken a provocative military deployment designed to test our resolve and our ability to challenge China, and we’ve failed that test”,” he said.

“What it demonstrates is that the current defence planning… is inadequate and insufficient to meet the challenge that we’re facing,” he says.

What’s needed, he says, is for Government to start significantly increasing defence spending and military capability now, rather than in 10 years’ time.

Lacklustre spending must be ramped up

While China has rapidly built up its navy to be the largest in the world, our 16 active battle-force vessels are either ageing or lack the firepower Australia needs.

There are plans to grow that fleet to record levels over the next two decades, but that might wind up coming too late, given Australia no longer has a 10-year pre-conflict warning time window.

Defence officials confirmed this week Australia will spend 2.03 pr cent of GDP on defence this financial year, slowly rising to 2.3 per cent by 2033-34.

With growing uncertainties in Europe, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer this week pledged to lift Britain’s defence spending from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent in the next two years, before ramping up to 3 per cent after the next election.

The sense of urgency being felt in Europe must also be felt here.

“Defence need to be spending more in the short term,” ANU Associate Professor Andrew Carr told The Nightly, adding that defence is currently bogged down by being too “risk adverse” which prolongs timelines.

Mr Davis said Australia needs to start thinking now about “how we spend much more on defence sooner, and on the right sort of capabilities” — namely long-range naval capabilities, long-range air power, strike, intelligence, and reconnaissance.

“All of those things need to be fast tracked. They need to be accelerated in acquisition, and they need to be expanded in scope compared to what is currently in the integrated investment program and the national defence strategy,” he said.

Mr Marles says Labor have significantly increased defence spending this term, and that the Government will “constantly assess this”.

“In a rational world, defence spending is a function of strategic threat,” he said today as he called for “sober, careful, and calm language” amid Coalition claims of gunboat diplomacy.

PM must stand strong

Even though China’s actions in the Tasman Sea haven’t breached international law, it was certainly provocative, irresponsible, disruptive, and denounceable. It is also a test to the relationship.

Anthony Albanese has reason to pride himself on his Government’s success at removing Australia from Beijing’s diplomatic freezer and stabilising relations with our biggest trading partner.

But the PM cannot let those hard-fought wins hamper his ability to call out China when it behaves badly.

“The far more important question for the PM in this is strategic: Are you willing and able to stand up to China? Yes, they’re an important strategic partner, but we need to convey to them that they can’t behave like this off our coast,” Associate Professor Carr says.

“The core issue is that a major trading partner is able and willing to conduct harassment campaigns against us, as they do against their Southeast Asia neighbours like Japan, Philippines and Taiwan.

“It’s important to rebuild our relationship and maintain diplomacy — but we also need to publicly call them out if we are to deter.”

Mr Davis says the Government has made a “classic mistake of not wanting to sacrifice trade and stabilisation at the price of national security and defence.

“You never put trade or diplomacy above national defence. No one wants to not have a stabilised relationship… but you don’t get that at the expense of your national security or defence interests,” he said.

“And by not responding strongly to this incident, I think the Government is making a mistake of creating a window of opportunity for the Chinese to start doing that more often.”

And if the Government fails to heed that warning by rapidly bolstering its capabilities and building up defence spending, we risk failing again next time.