Australia is set to spend the most amount on defence outside of wartime as the military's strategy for coming years is released.
Defence Minister Richard Marles will hand down the 2026 national defence strategy on Thursday, which will lay out the path forward for Australia's armed forces and projects it will pursue over the next two years.
Mr Marles will reveal in a speech at the National Press Club an extra $14 billion will be spent on defence in the next four years, compared with estimates laid out in the previous strategy from 2024.
An additional $53 billion will be set aside for defence over the next decade.
The figures mean Australia's total defence spending will rise to three per cent of GDP by 2033.
The federal government previously announced it would aim to reach 2.3 per cent by the 2033 deadline.
Australia has been facing calls by the US to lift its defence spend to 3.5 per cent as the Trump administration pushes allied countries to do more with their military.
Mr Marles will say an increase in money allocated for the military was necessary given the shift in the global environment.
"Australia faces its most complex and threatening strategic circumstances since the end of World War II. International norms that once constrained the use of force and military coercion continue to erode," he will say.
"In the face of this, the Albanese government is pursuing every avenue of increasing defence capability quickly, mostly through bigger defence appropriations but also through accessing private capital.
"The result is that we are now seeing the biggest peacetime increase in defence spending in our nation’s history."
The defence minister will also lay out priority areas for the Australian Defence Force in the speech.
Already, billions of extra dollars have been earmarked for drones, given their successful use in Ukraine and the Middle East.
"Delivering this strategy is not only about investing more — it is about spending better," Mr Marles will say.
"It puts Australia on a path to strengthen our defence self-reliance. It reinforces the industrial and national foundations of defence, and it situates Australia firmly within a network of trusted regional and global partnerships."
