Latest news with #EuanGraham
The Australian
7 days ago
- Business
- The Australian
The government's best major defence purchase
Mogami was selected over the German-made ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems' MEKO A-200 because it was the more capable ship and the company had a better industrial plan, Defence Minister Richard Marles announced. As Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Euan Graham said before the decision was announced, he had been told the Japanese were 'ahead on every significant criteria except price'. The US is believed to have quietly supported the Japanese bid. The frigates will help secure Australia's maritime trade routes and vital northern approaches. It is a significant advantage that Japan offered to allocate a ship that was already in production to Australia, accelerating delivery of the first vessel. It is scheduled to be delivered in 2029 and operational in 2030. The program will cost $10bn over a decade, delivering three vessels to be built in Japan. The remaining eight will be built at the Henderson shipbuilding precinct in Western Australia. Japanese ambassador Kazuhiro Suzuki said the process would kickstart an advanced manufacturing boom in Australia, as Ben Packham reports. Before the decision was announced, Mr Suzuki said at least 12 major Japanese companies would invest in Australia if MHI's bid succeeded. While Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy previously said that the decision would be made on the basis of the frigates' design and the bidders' industrial plans, rather than geopolitical considerations, the selection also provides important strategic benefits. 'There's no other country in the world that is quite as aligned with Australia as Japan,'' Mr Marles said. The contract would cement Japan's quasi alliance with Australia (sometimes colloquially referred to as 'Jaukus''), Mr Suzuki said, adding: 'Japan and Australia held 39 joint exercises last year, including multilateral ones – roughly one in every nine days.'' The decision, which deserves the bipartisan support it has attracted, is the Albanese government's most important and best defence decision to date, as Greg Sheridan writes. It contributes to the strategic evolution of Japan as a major military and industrial power within the US alliance and gives life to the vision that Tony Abbott pioneered as prime minister by trying to partner with Tokyo to build Australia's future submarine. On that occasion, Japan lost out to France's Naval Group, which later lost the contract when the Morrison government committed to the AUKUS partnership, with nuclear-powered submarines. As China takes its military build-up across the Asia-Pacific region to a level unparalleled since World War II, dangerous times demand lethal defences. The Mogami frigate is designed to carry plenty of firepower. Mr Marles described it as a 'next-generation'' stealthy vessel, with 32 vertical launch cells capable of launching long-range missiles. It also has a highly capable radar and sonar. It was 'a general-purpose frigate capable of engaging in air warfare and undersea warfare', he said. News of the frigates comes a day after Mr Marles announced an improvement in the number of ADF recruitments and retention. Rarely has defence hardware and personnel mattered as much in peacetime. Purchasing the MHI frigates is an important step that paves the way not only for more defence spending, but judicious spending. Read related topics: AUKUS
Sky News AU
17-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
‘Very long visit': Anthony Albanese spending extensive amount of time in China
Australian Strategic Policy Institute's Dr Euan Graham discusses Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's 'very long visit' to China. Mr Graham told Sky News Australia that the long visit is a 'big stamp' on the importance of China from the Australian government's perspective. 'China, in economic terms, is not going to be the leading demand partner that it has been for decades; it's on the decline, so we need to be diversifying and looking for other markets now.'
The Age
25-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
NATO countries bowed to Trump's defence demands. It'll cost them 19,800 fighter jets
Governments around the world agreeing to the change will need to make some tough decisions in the context of other budget pressures, says Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. 'How the government cuts the pie of the tax take is going to require hard, hard decisions,' Graham says. The UK, for example, which has agreed to hit the 5 per cent target by 2035, is slashing foreign aid to pay for its additional $155 billion defence spending bill. 'That is not an announcement that I am happy to make,' UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the change. 'However, the realities of our dangerous new era mean that the defence and national security of our country must always come first.' Other countries lifting their spending to meet the new target include Germany, France and Italy. They will need to boost their annual spending by $220 billion, $153 billion and $135 billion, respectively. Earlier this month, Rutte warned NATO members that if they didn't pledge to up defence spending to 5 per cent, 'you'd better learn to speak Russian'. But Spain, which spent just 1.3 per cent of its GDP on defence last year, refused the increase. The extra spending would force the country to 'drastically raise taxes on the middle class, or severely cut the size of our welfare state,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. The NATO agreement could see Australia dragged further into the debate over defence spending by bolstering the Trump White House's argument that US allies can spend more on defence. US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth has told Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, which the Albanese has pushed back against in favour of its plan to lift expenditure to 2.3 per cent. The Coalition went to the election promising to lift defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2035-36, which the Parliamentary Budget Office said this week would cost $156 billion and add $24 billion in interest costs. If Australia's defence spending was lifted to 5 per cent in the same time frame, the cost to the federal budget would be $261 billion and have an additional $40 billion in interest. Rabobank senior strategist Ben Picton said the debate was about 'guns or butter'. 'The Australian government is faced with choices between increasing the defence budget to expand capability or increasing spending on social programs like the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aged care, and childcare,' Picton said in a research note this week. 'Clearly, Australia is currently choosing 'butter' but retains substantial headroom in the budget to increase spending by comparison to peer economies.' Loading The Australian government spent about $56 billion on defence in 2024-25 – more than the $44 billion it spent on the NDIS. Eminent economist Saul Eslake believes that no government will cut spending on social services to beef up defence. 'You'd make a lot of people pissed off and it's hard to do, which to me means you've got to look to the revenue side [to raise more money],' Eslake says. But Graham says Australians would understand a cut to services – like the NDIS – if the government was 'honest about the nature of the threat' posed to national security.
Sydney Morning Herald
25-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
NATO bowed to Trump's defence demands. It'll cost them 19,800 fighter jets
Governments around the world agreeing to the change will need to make some tough decisions in the context of other budget pressures, says Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. 'How the government cuts the pie of the tax take is going to require hard, hard decisions,' Graham says. The UK, for example, which has agreed to hit the 5 per cent target by 2035, is slashing foreign aid to pay for its additional $155 billion defence spending bill. 'That is not an announcement that I am happy to make,' UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the change. 'However, the realities of our dangerous new era mean that the defence and national security of our country must always come first.' Other countries lifting their spending to meet the new target include Germany, France and Italy. They will need to boost their annual spending by $220 billion, $153 billion and $135 billion, respectively. Earlier this month, Rutte warned NATO members that if they didn't pledge to up defence spending to 5 per cent, 'you'd better learn to speak Russian'. But Spain, which spent just 1.3 per cent of its GDP on defence last year, refused the increase. The extra spending would force the country to 'drastically raise taxes on the middle class, or severely cut the size of our welfare state,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. The NATO agreement could see Australia dragged further into the debate over defence spending by bolstering the Trump White House's argument that US allies can spend more on defence. US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth has told Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, which the Albanese has pushed back against in favour of its plan to lift expenditure to 2.3 per cent. The Coalition went to the election promising to lift defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2035-36, which the Parliamentary Budget Office said this week would cost $156 billion and add $24 billion in interest costs. If Australia's defence spending was lifted to 5 per cent in the same time frame, the cost to the federal budget would be $261 billion and have an additional $40 billion in interest. Rabobank senior strategist Ben Picton said the debate was about 'guns or butter'. 'The Australian government is faced with choices between increasing the defence budget to expand capability or increasing spending on social programs like the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aged care, and childcare,' Picton said in a research note this week. 'Clearly, Australia is currently choosing 'butter' but retains substantial headroom in the budget to increase spending by comparison to peer economies.' Loading The Australian government spent about $56 billion on defence in 2024-25 – more than the $44 billion it spent on the NDIS. Eminent economist Saul Eslake believes that no government will cut spending on social services to beef up defence. 'You'd make a lot of people pissed off and it's hard to do, which to me means you've got to look to the revenue side [to raise more money],' Eslake says. But Graham says Australians would understand a cut to services – like the NDIS – if the government was 'honest about the nature of the threat' posed to national security.
The Age
25-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
NATO bowed to Trump's defence demands. It'll cost them 19,800 fighter jets
Governments around the world agreeing to the change will need to make some tough decisions in the context of other budget pressures, says Euan Graham, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. 'How the government cuts the pie of the tax take is going to require hard, hard decisions,' Graham says. The UK, for example, which has agreed to hit the 5 per cent target by 2035, is slashing foreign aid to pay for its additional $155 billion defence spending bill. 'That is not an announcement that I am happy to make,' UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the change. 'However, the realities of our dangerous new era mean that the defence and national security of our country must always come first.' Other countries lifting their spending to meet the new target include Germany, France and Italy. They will need to boost their annual spending by $220 billion, $153 billion and $135 billion, respectively. Earlier this month, Rutte warned NATO members that if they didn't pledge to up defence spending to 5 per cent, 'you'd better learn to speak Russian'. But Spain, which spent just 1.3 per cent of its GDP on defence last year, refused the increase. The extra spending would force the country to 'drastically raise taxes on the middle class, or severely cut the size of our welfare state,' Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said. The NATO agreement could see Australia dragged further into the debate over defence spending by bolstering the Trump White House's argument that US allies can spend more on defence. US Defence Secretary Peter Hegseth has told Australia to increase defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP, which the Albanese has pushed back against in favour of its plan to lift expenditure to 2.3 per cent. The Coalition went to the election promising to lift defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2035-36, which the Parliamentary Budget Office said this week would cost $156 billion and add $24 billion in interest costs. If Australia's defence spending was lifted to 5 per cent in the same time frame, the cost to the federal budget would be $261 billion and have an additional $40 billion in interest. Rabobank senior strategist Ben Picton said the debate was about 'guns or butter'. 'The Australian government is faced with choices between increasing the defence budget to expand capability or increasing spending on social programs like the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), aged care, and childcare,' Picton said in a research note this week. 'Clearly, Australia is currently choosing 'butter' but retains substantial headroom in the budget to increase spending by comparison to peer economies.' Loading The Australian government spent about $56 billion on defence in 2024-25 – more than the $44 billion it spent on the NDIS. Eminent economist Saul Eslake believes that no government will cut spending on social services to beef up defence. 'You'd make a lot of people pissed off and it's hard to do, which to me means you've got to look to the revenue side [to raise more money],' Eslake says. But Graham says Australians would understand a cut to services – like the NDIS – if the government was 'honest about the nature of the threat' posed to national security.
