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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson’s defence spending plan would cost taxpayers an estimated extra $400 billion over four years – more than the entire cost of the AUKUS program – and require a combination of tax increases, massive budget cuts and possibly the reintroduction of conscription.
Hanson used a speech at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last November to urge Australia to lift defence spending to at least 5 per cent of gross domestic product, echoing a call by billionaire Gina Rinehart during last year’s election campaign.
One Nation’s polling surge, which has pushed it above Labor and the Coalition in several major surveys, has focused attention on the right-wing populist party’s policy platform and how it would operate if it becomes a major party.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor and Liberal Party president Tony Abbott indicated they were willing to sign up to a preference swap deal with One Nation to remove Labor from power.
There is no defence policy on One Nation’s website, and the party has not provided any detail on how the extra money would be raised, what it would be spent on or when Australia would hit the 5 per cent funding target.
Australia spends around 2 per cent of GDP on defence – around $63 billion a year.
Leading defence economist Marcus Hellyer said lifting core defence expenditure to 5 per cent of GDP would grow the budget to around $692 billion over the four-year forward estimates, up from $277 billion under the current policy settings.
This figure would continue to grow dramatically in subsequent years.
The plan for Australia to acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines under AUKUS is estimated to cost between $268 billion and $368 billion over the next 30 years, a price tag that has helped spark intense debate about the merits of the plan.
Hellyer, head of research at the Strategic Analysis Australia think tank, said the huge defence spending increase would require either tax increases or cuts to portfolios such as health and aged care to avoid blowing out the budget.
The 5 per cent figure is associated with wartime economies such as Ukraine and Israel, he said.
“South Korea doesn’t even spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence, and it is sitting next to nuclear-armed North Korea,” he said.
“To spend that amount of money, you’d need to get a lot more people into the defence force to operate all the equipment you are buying.
“You immediately start to think of some form of national service because you won’t get there voluntarily in peacetime.”
Most strategic experts believe Australia should be spending at least 3 per cent of GDP on defence to fund AUKUS without hollowing out the rest of the defence force, he said.
Hellyer added that it would also be difficult to quickly ramp up defence spending because of bottlenecks in global supply chains and the small size of the Australian defence industry.
“We’ll be at the end of a very long queue,” he said.
“It’s not like you can go to the shop and buy as much as you want.”
In a rare appearance at Senate estimates hearings last week, Hanson said she was shocked by the defence force’s “ageing equipment” and argued the military was “pathetic for a country of our size”.
One Nation did not respond to a request for comment on One Nation’s defence policy, including on whether it had modelled the cost of the policy.
Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Malcolm Davis called for more detail from One Nation on its defence policy.
“I have tried to find the One Nation defence policy and there’s nothing there. That’s disturbing,” he said.
Davis said: “We do need to spend more on defence, there’s a broad consensus on that in the strategic community.
“But we need something more substantive and detailed than just saying we will spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence. It only makes sense if it is spent on the capabilities we need, not just throwing more money at defence.”
The NATO nations made a commitment last year to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035, but this figure includes 3.5 per cent for core military needs and 1.5 per cent for security-related investments such as improving cyber networks and upgrading roads and bridges to accommodate heavy military vehicles.
Defence Minister Richard Marles said in April that the government plans to spend 3 per cent of GDP by 2033 using a NATO accounting method that includes spending on military superannuation entitlements, income support for veterans and chunks of funding for the nation’s domestic and foreign spy agencies.
Asked whether the Liberal Party would preference One Nation at the next federal election, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said that “we’ll work with whoever we have to get rid of this toxic Labor government”.
In an email to Liberal Party members announcing he planned to hold a series of meetings around the country with supporters to gather ideas about how to revive the party, Abbott suggested the party’s willingness to work with One Nation.
“We certainly won’t win the next election as slaves to focus groups and being a little bit less ‘woke’ than Labor,” he said.
“As well, you can be confident about our collective determination to work constructively with others who also want a change of government.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “The problem for Angus Taylor is that if he tries to out-One-Nation One Nation, then they become indistinguishable, and people more and more will go towards what they see as the real thing.”
Despite the party’s polling surge, Trade Minister Don Farrell claimed One Nation was not a threat to Labor.
“The populist parties in this country come and go, they rise and they fall,” he said.
“I don’t think Labor has anything to fear from One Nation.”
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