Donna Demaio: Australia Correspondent on the boost to defence spending expected in Labor's budget

A sizable boost to defence spending's expected in Australia's budget. 

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down his fourth federal budget for Labor tonight. 

The Defence Minister says it will include bringing forward a billion dollar spend on defence. 

It comes as New Zealand ministers hint at more spending in defence here too. 

Australia correspondent Donna Demaio told Andrew Dickens it's a significant spend. 

She says it will be the biggest defence spend since World War II, and will boost the country's military capability. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're off to Australia. Done and Toamaya. Good morning to you,
Good morning to you. We are counting down to the
federal budget. What's been happening.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh, yes, we're down to the next few hours and
then it's being handed down by the Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers.
It's his fourth budget tonight. It's particularly important, as you
can imagine, because of the looming federal election. Of course,
we don't know the date yet of the election, but
it can't be later than May seventeen. But a budget
can certainly influence voters. Some things we know already one

(00:30):
point two billion dollars for the cleanup bill post x cyclone. Alfred.
I've also had the PM hinting that there could be
support for the local steel and aluminum industry facing those
twenty five percent tariffs imposed by the US. There could
be some help to reduce student debt. There's going to
be extra childcare funding, some bill subsidies because we know
all about the pressures of the cost of living, education

(00:53):
boost for Queensland. There's also women's health services funding boosts.
And interestingly, I thought we hear that Labour's going to
make its biggest defense spending increase since World War II,
bringing forward one billion dollars in defense spending. And that's
obviously to boost our military capability.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
You need to set the military on those fire ants
in Queensland.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh, dear May, the Queensdake government has announced extra funding
to help tackle invasive fire ants. Would you believe this
month alone, sixty people have reported extreme reactions to fire
ant stings and twenty three people had to be hospitalized.
And well, we're hearing that residence of Queensland. They're effectively

(01:39):
under assault from these fire ants on farms in backyards
and we know that six months ago the previous government said,
well people had to take responsibility for controlling the pets.
Well now we've heard from the current government they're going
to spend an extra twenty four million dollars over the
next two years to try to control them. That makes
it sixty one million dollars to try to take care

(02:01):
of these fire ants which can travel five kilometers in
one single flight. They damage crops, they eat seeds, and
of course there's painful stings that sadly can lead to
allergic reactions, anaphylaxis even and possibly death in some cases.
So they're saying that if they don't take care of
this situation, at the cost of the economy could be

(02:24):
billions of dollars over the next several years.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Evil little biggers here those bites. I mean, that's why
they call fire ants. It stings like fire. And I
thank you Donald Demio for more from Early Edition with
Ryan Bridge. Listen live to News Talks it Be from
five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.