‘Absolute balderdash': Albanese criticised for rejection to raise defence spending
The Australian's Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan says the Labor Party is talking "absolute balderdash" to suggest they have increased defence spending.
This comes after US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth asked the Australian federal government to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP.
'The Prime Minister is talking complete and absolute baloney here,' Mr Sheridan told Sky News Australia.
'The Albanese government is talking absolute balderdash to say it's made a serious increase in our defence expenditure.
'When they came into office, we were spending two per cent of our GDP on defence, we are still spending two per cent on defence.
'We cannot even field the pathetic resources we have, much less expand in any way.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


7NEWS
30 minutes ago
- 7NEWS
Tobacco tax to stay high despite black market fears
A tobacco tax that's helped drive Australian cigarette prices to world-leading highs won't be lowered despite suggestions it has aided a rampant black market. Treasurer Jim Chalmers ruled out changing the tobacco excise on Wednesday, dismissing NSW Premier Chris Minns' call that lower prices could help curb surging levels of illegal tobacco in the community. Tobacco prices have been driven by a federal excise topping $1.40 a cigarette in March, excluding shop mark-ups, with the average pack of 20 costing about $40. Tobacco tax revenue peaked at $16.3 billion in 2019-20 but has dipped to a projected $7.4 billion this financial year, which experts say illustrates cigarette prices becoming unaffordable and smokers turning to the black market. Ruling out a change to the excise, the treasurer said the revenue decrease was for both good and bad reasons. 'More people are giving up the darts, but more people are also doing the wrong thing (and) I'm not convinced cutting the excise on cigarettes would mean that would be the end of illegal activity,' Chalmers said. 'I respectfully disagree with Chris ... I don't think the answer here is to make cigarettes cheaper for people, the answer here is to get better at compliance.' Earlier in the week, Minns said police had better things to do than tobacco enforcement and the 'commonsense option' would be for the federal government to acknowledge the excise was not working. He pointed out the excise had increased from $16 to $28 per pack in six years but total revenue was going backward as consumers fled to the black market. NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey insisted he would raise the issue with his federal counterpart despite the flat rejection. 'We can't ignore the fact there's an interaction between the federal exercise and the emergence of illegal tobacco,' he said. Increased scrutiny on illicit tobacco came as police on Tuesday announced the arrest of seven people over 20 million untaxed cigarettes and other drug imports.

AU Financial Review
40 minutes ago
- AU Financial Review
Entain boss Dean Shannon to depart ahead of AUSTRAC remediation
Dean Shannon, chief executive of the British bookmaker behind Ladbrokes and Neds, will step down at the end of the month in an attempt to improve the business relationship with the financial crimes watchdog. London-listed Entain faces hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for alleged breaches of Australian anti-money laundering laws between 2018 and last year.

Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
‘Atmosphere of terror': Ukraine prepares for Russian retaliation amid Putin's vow of revenge
Ukraine Ministry of Strategic Industries advisor Yuriy Sak claims Ukraine is getting ready for 'some form of retaliation' from Russia. 'Russia is a terrorist state, so the only response that we can expect is, of course, more missiles on Ukrainian peaceful cities, more drones,' he told Sky News Australia. 'Ukrainian government is issuing a warning every day now to Ukrainians that if there's an air raid siren on, they have to go to the bomb shelter, take their children to bomb shelters. 'We've been living in this atmosphere of terror now for three years.'