FORMER PM SPEAKS: Tony Abbot call for defence to be beefed up. Says “the national government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem” and “almost the only area of spending that the Rudd-Gillard government failed massively to boost was defence”.

Largely thanks to the Howard government, which substantially re-equipped our armed forces after the East Timor campaign exposed huge limitations, Australia is one of the very few Western countries with more military capability now than a decade ago.