Australian politics and news live: Peter Dutton, Andrew Hastie announce $21b defence pledge

To finish the press conference, Mr Dutton is asked why he is avoiding visiting towns set to house the seven proposed nuclear reactors.

He denies that’s the case, saying he has been to Bunbury and the Hunter.

During his visit to Bunbury, in the first week of the campaign, he didn’t leave the airport.

He has made numerous visits to the Hunter but not to Lithgow.

Mr Dutton says it’s still his plan to introduce questions about anti-Semitism into the citizenship test and will re-vet the 2000 odd people who have come from Gaza since October 7.

Given all those have been vetted at the Rafah border by Israel, does that mean he doesn’t trust our security agencies or allies?

Mr Dutton says: “We will take advice and conduct proper security checks”.

Mr Dutton was also asked whether he had any intention to move to recognise the capital of Israel as West Jerusalem.

To that, he said the Coalition don’t have any plans to change the current arrangements.

Mr Dutton says Kim Beazley (the former Labor deputy PM) had also called for defence spending to increase to three per cent of GDP.

“This election is between Anthony Albanese and I,” he said, when pressed on the Donald Trump timing of it all.

Mr Dutton says he’s funding this defence boost by repealing some of the baked-in ongoing costs Labor has built into the budget bottom line, like the newly legislated tax cuts.

“When we talk about $12 billion over the forward estimates, Labor is locking in spending of $7 billion a year, which is $28 billion over the forward estimates and $17.4 billion over this 4-year period,” he said.

“We deal with the expenditure side of it, and we have been clear about that.”

Does that mean he’s paying for the policy by repealing income tax cuts, funding it by bracket creep, rather than spending restraint and finding cuts elsewhere?

Mr Dutton doesn’t really answer the question, opting instead to say the Coalition is offering taxpayers a better deal than Labor is at this election.

Some Coalition MPs have raised concerns that saving big policies like defence, and last week’s mortgage deductibility announcement, was risky, especially given 500,000 people voted on Tuesday.

He said it would have been “imprudent” to announce his defence policy any earlier, because the Coalition needed to know what state the budget was in.

“We have taken the more prudent approach. That was to see what the bottom line looked like to make sure we weren’t promising funny money,” he said.

“It is a promise that we are committed to. We are absolutely serious about defence.”

Asked if he could nominate any capabilities that the promised defence spending would go towards, Mr Dutton said there were a number of areas that needed investing in.

“Drone capability and guided weapons, our munitions and our capability across most platforms, including frigates. That all becomes a reality again,” he said.

“Our cyber defences (is) where Labor has pulled money out. We are not announcing procurement contracts from the Opposition, which would be something we are not able to do without that advice.

“They are the capabilities we need to invest in.

“That is the advice I received as defence minister.”

Pressed on whether he’d be willing to change his mind on his stance on the Ukraine peacekeeping force, the Opposition Leader said he had “dealt with that”.

When another reporter insisted he hadn’t, Mr Dutton said: “I have stated our position”.

Peter Dutton has been asked why he’s so intent on Australia not joining a coalition of the willing peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

It was pointed out to him that Australia has contributed to heaps of peace-keeping missions that similarly haven’t involved a US presence, like Israel, Cyprus and Mozambique.

He said he was “opposed to us sending in, in an ill-defined way to an ill-defined mission, our troops on the border with a nuclear-powered country like Russia with a lunatic in charge, not knowing what could happen next”.

“The Prime Minister hadn’t thought about it, he hadn’t discussed it with the CDF, he hadn’t discussed it with the Minister for Defence.”

Pushed on what kind of ally Australia was if we “don’t come to help”, Mr Dutton says Australia has provided significant support.

“We are a great friend of Ukraine. I am not putting the lives of Australian soldiers at risk without understanding anything of what is being asked,” he said, going on to query how long troops would be required to stay in Europe, how many, and what it would mean for capabilities in our own region.

“We have a record low investment in defence under Labor and we are talking about diverting what would be billions of dollars from the defence budget into sustaining our effort in Europe. That is not the approach of a prudent Prime Minister who understands national security,” he said.

There’s been a fiery back and forward with Shadow Defence Minister Andrew Hastie and journalists at a Perth press conference this morning about his previous comments around women in the Australian Defence Force.

Several years ago, Mr Hastie had said he didn’t believe women could perform some roles within the ADF.

He has since declared that his opinion has changed and the Coalition’s policy is that anyone can take up roles in the ADF.

“The Coalition policy is that all combat roles are open to women. It’s been our long-standing position,” he said.

“We have one standard. All Australians, regardless of your background, race, sexuality, gender, religion, every single role in the ADF is open to you, and we want more Australians to join.

“I am not going to resile from what I have said in the past.

“You want honesty and integrity from politicians, I said what I said, but the thing that the Australian people need to know, under a Dutton-led Coalition government, we will have a policy that is open to all Australians for combat roles.”

Opposition leader Peter Dutton has slammed Defence Minister Richard Marles for focusing more on playing golf around the world rather than on protecting Australians.

The personal attack comes as the Liberal leader spruiks his defence policy in Perth today.

“Under Richard Marles, when it comes to defence, he’s more interested in playing golf courses around the world than getting a better understanding of what it is that we need to do as a country,” he said.

It comes after Mr Dutton slammed former Labor PM and Australian ambassador to the US for not being able to get a phone call with President Donald Trump when his predecessor had previously played golf with Mr Trump previously.