How will the Coalition pay for its increase in defence funding?

Or, the better question, what will the Coalition de-prioritise in order to meet its funding priorities?

Hume says that’s coming:

You’ll see the Coalition’s costings prior to the election. They will be released, as they traditionally are, by both sides of government… before the election. You’ll see them in great detail.

This is a very considered approach to doing what is the most important for Australia. We want to make sure that we deliver strong economic management and the IMF have said we need to increase the fiscal buffers, the economic buffers, that is something we are conscious of and will actively do – bring our budget back to structural surplus, inject that objective back into our budgetary system, put guardrails around our budget.

That’s something that Labor have removed. At the same time, we need to understand that we need to invest more in Australia’s national security. When we have Chinese warships off our shores, firing in the vicinity of civilian aircraft, when we have our own service men and women being put at risk by lasers, by sonars, and yet this Prime Minister has done so little. His response has been so weak in the face of that.

Putting aside the Coalition’s continued attack that Albanese is “weak” (which is coming up in focus groups as a line with some cut through) let’s look at Hume’s answer. She is saying that the Coalition will cut – meaning austerity – in order to bring about it’s chosen priorities – in this case, defence.

Hume is saying things like ‘structural surplus’ which is when the structure of the economy itself is such that you are generating more revenue than you are spending. So it is the government taking more money from you, than it is spending on you.

If the Coalition wants to increase defence funding, within an environment where it is generating a structural surplus, than it has to make big cuts elsewhere – unless it is suddenly going to decide to tax fossil fuel companies or billionaires. But in the absence of wealth tax, this plan sounds like a poor tax – where the Coalition will be cutting services and welfare for the lower and middle classes, in order to meet its own priorities.