Rinehart uses Anzac Day service to push for enormous increase in defence spending

Sydney Morning Herald

24-04-2025

Australia's richest person, mining magnate Gina Rinehart, has called for a gargantuan rise in defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP at a sunset vigil before Anzac Day as Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and Defence Minister Richard Marles sat in the audience.
Dutton, Marles and former prime ministers Tony Abbott, Scott Morrison and John Howard were guests at the Channel Seven Anzac Day Eve ceremony just outside the Sydney Opera House.
It came a day after the Coalition leader said if his party formed government it would take defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030 and to 3 per cent by the middle of the next decade.
Defence spending under Labor is projected to rise from 2.02 per cent of GDP this year to 2.3 per cent by 2034, making the Coalition's 3 per cent long-term pledge significantly more ambitious.
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However, both parties' promises pale in comparison to Rinehart's intervention, as she claimed, 'we urgently need to do more to defend Australians, starting with protecting our ports, airports, sea lanes and other vital infrastructure, and significantly boosting our smart sea mines, war drones and Israeli-style [missile defence] domes accordingly.
'Boosting our defence manufacturing here in Australia, as well as our budget to 5 per cent of GDP. Five per cent of GDP, like Europe is moving towards.
'I have so much more to say on this, at another time.'
A rise to 5 per cent of GDP would almost certainly cripple the federal budget. The Coalition's plan to drive defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP would create a $100 billion budget hole in the first half of the 2030s.