A landmark review drastically reshaping Australia's military has been labelled a "smokescreen" for funding cuts and project delays, the opposition says, as the federal government reprioritises $19 billion in defence funding for the "missile age".
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A declassified version of the Defence Strategic Review was released on Monday, calling for a major overhaul of the country's defence settings.
Amid a period of potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, review authors former defence force chief Angus Houston and former defence minister Stephen Smith urged a focus on northern Australia and investment in long-range missile capability in recommendations agreed to by the federal government.
The changes announced on Monday will reprioritise $7.8 billion in savings over the next four years, and form part of a total $19 billion in reallocated spending, which includes the cost of AUKUS plans until mid-2027.
As part of the changes, 21 projects are being rescoped, six are being delayed and another six cancelled.
Among those being slashed is the infantry combat vehicle project, the known as Land 400 Phase 3, which will result in 450 vehicles in the pipeline being reduced to 129.
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Opposition defence spokesperson Andrew Hastie lashed the federal government's announcement, calling it a "cannibalising" of Army capability and a "degradation of land power".
Mr Hastie, who formerly served in the Army, said the cuts would mean land troops would have less protection in battle.
"The Albanese government has accepted the analysis of the Defence Strategic Update of 2020 -delivered by the former Coalition government - and has also continued AUKUS-initiated by the former Coalition government," Mr Hastie said following the report's release.
"But today's announcement is a smokescreen to hide the truth about the DSR: the delays to strategic direction; the deferral of spending and the cannibalising of capability as Labor cost shifts within the defence budget.
"We won't see a national strategy document until 2024. They've delayed a strategy until next year.
"If we are in such a dangerous strategic period - as we all agree that we are - we've lost another year of defence preparedness.
"We won't see any new money. We see the government funding the DSR recommendations through offsets, cannibalising capability as Peter Dutton and I have warned about."
Greens senator David Shoebridge was also critical of the announcement but instead focused on its approach threatening China and further closening ties to the US.
"Marching to war in response to the increasing competition between the US and China is not in our national interest and does not make us safer," he said.
"It is deeply distressing that this simple fact is not recognised in the review."
Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy described the reduction of land combat vehicles, along with a slashing of self-propelled howitzers, as necessary to fund the capabilities required for a modern military.
The money saved will be put toward investing in High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems - or HIMARS - and land-based maritime strike capabilities to give the Australian Army "significant range and projection", Mr Conroy said.
The strategic review was scathing in its assessment of the military's current settings, outlining the rise of the "missile age" meant Australia could no longer rely on its geographic isolation as a natural defence.
"More countries are able to project combat power across greater ranges, including against our trade and supply routes, which are vital for Australia's economic prosperity," the report said.
"Cyber warfare is not bound by geography.
"The rise of the 'missile age' in modern warfare, crystallised by the proliferation of long-range precision strike weapons, has radically reduced Australia's geographic benefits, the comfort of distance and our qualitative regional capability edge."
Professor Paul Dibb, a former Defence Department deputy secretary who wrote a review of Australia's Defence Capabilities in 1986, dubbed the "Dibb Report", has previously urged military leaders and government to focus on the defence of the country's northern reaches.
"If I might say so, one of the more disturbing things, however, is that since [the "Dibb" report's release], Army has gone backwards," Dr Dibb said at the Japanese Embassy earlier this year.
"A few years ago, I was at the new Cultana barracks in Adelaide, it cost $630 million.
"A battalion was detached from Darwin to go there I presume ... to face the threat from the penguins of Antarctica."
