Defence Minister Richard Marles handed down the 2026 national defence strategy on Thursday, laying out the path for Australia's armed forces and the projects it will pursue over the next two years.
Mr Marles revealed in a speech at the National Press Club that an extra $14 billion will be spent on defence in the next four years, compared with estimates laid out in the 2024 strategy.
An additional $53 billion will be set aside for defence over the next decade.
Among the priority areas for the military were undersea warfare and boosting maritime capability, as well as expanding the use of long-range strikes and having a greater use of air and missile defences.
The use of unmanned drones will also be expanded to protect Australian sites and military crews on land, air and sea.
Defence had already flagged billions of dollars would spent in coming years on drones, following their successful uses in Ukraine and throughout the Middle East.
Mr Marles said the strategy would focus on increasing efforts to make the military more self reliant in coming years and strengthening resilience in industrial bases.
Industrial partnerships with overseas allies would also be diversified.
Mr Marles said the increase in money allocated for the military was necessary given the shift in the global environment.
"Australia faces its most complex and threatening strategic circumstances since the end of World War II. International norms that once constrained the use of force and military coercion continue to erode," he said.
"In the face of this, the Albanese government is pursuing every avenue of increasing defence capability quickly, mostly through bigger defence appropriations but also through accessing private capital.
"The result is that we are now seeing the biggest peacetime increase in defence spending in our nation's history."
The government said the three per cent spending mark for defence was measured using methodology as defined by NATO.
That definition of defence spending goes beyond just military equipment and includes all areas such as veteran pensions.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the announcement on spending was only an artificial boost.
"Creative accounting does not defend a single Australian. Creative accounting does not defend our country," he told reporters on the Gold Coast.
"There is nothing I have seen coming from the government today, other than creative accounting, as a way of getting the defence spend up."
The coalition went to the 2025 federal election pledging to lift the defence spend to three per cent.
Mr Taylor said the three per cent target by itself, without using the broader NATO definition, was the only proper measure of military spending.
"That's the benchmark that puts us in a position where we can invest not just in the submarines that we need ... but also in the drones, the missile capability and in the people we need in our war fighters," he said.
"You don't defend any Australian by changing the accounting rules."
But the defence minister said the spending increase allowed for a more versatile military.
"Delivering this strategy is not only about investing more — it is about spending better," Mr Marles said.
"It puts Australia on a path to strengthen our defence self-reliance. It reinforces the industrial and national foundations of defence, and it situates Australia firmly within a network of trusted regional and global partnerships."
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