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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese updates the media from the Viva Energy refinery on Friday.

Slammed by Trump in the morning, Albanese dials into call with Macron, Starmer on reopening the strait

Forty nations will join the call to discuss how to ensure freedom of navigation as US President Donald Trump rails that his allies – including Australia – have let him down.

  • Paul Sakkal and Michael Koziol

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Defence Minister Richard Marles.

Marles hits out at ‘washed-up bureaucrats’ amid accusations of accounting tricks

Richard Marles warned Australia stands “at the foothills of a new nuclear arms race” in the Indo-Pacific and needed to spend more to defend itself.

  • Matthew Knott
A raft of new laws to protect Australians online and regulate the digital economy have put Anthony Albanese at odds with Donald Trump and his preference for deregulation.

Trump has changed Australia’s defence spending. Just not in the way he thinks

The US president and his administration cannot claim credit for pressuring Australia to inject $53 billion more into defence over the next decade. The changing world has.

  • Matthew Knott
Defence Minister Richard Marles said the government was making the biggest ever peacetime increase in defence spending.

This is a big step forward on defence for Australia. Too bad we’re playing catch-up

The commitments of Australia’s new defence strategy and investment plan are necessary. But governments have been warned of the gathering storm for years.

  • Rory Medcalf
Royal Australian Air Force Airfield Defence Guards provide aircraft security at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul

$53 billion to be ploughed into Australia’s defence budget. Trump’s secretary of war wanted more

The government will argue defence spending will rise to 3 per cent of gross domestic product – but only by adopting a new way to calculate the figure.

  • Matthew Knott
A Ukrainian soldier holds a new model of attack drone, reflecting the changing nature of modern warfare.

‘The threat is here now’: Australia dangerously exposed without rise in defence spending

Defence Minister Richard Marles will release a 10-year defence spending plan on Thursday, in the face of increased warnings that Australia is not equipped for new types of warfare.

  • Matthew Knott
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The deal saw $45 million pumped into a plan to export Tim Tams.

The misguided slogan that led the government to spend $45 million on Tim Tams

Like cooks gone amok, politicians and interest groups are sprinkling the term “sovereign capability” over their pet projects in a bid to win taxpayer support.

  • Shane Wright
Dennis Richardson is an undisputed doyen of Australia’s national security and foreign policy community.

My chat with Dennis Richardson was very relaxed. Suddenly, his laid-back tone vanished

Fresh from pulling the pin on his role in the royal commission, the former spy chief has forthright opinions about antisemitism, Trump and an uncertain world.

  • Matthew Knott
Illustration by Simon Letch

‘So stingy’: Why Australia is sliding on this vital global ranking

Australia could soon be spending 20 times more on defence than on overseas aid – and that’s a problem for our national security.

  • Matt Wade

Australians know we’re under threat – and underprepared

A massive new study on attitudes to national security shows that while public anxiety is rising, there is some reassuring unity in our shared priorities.

  • Rory Medcalf