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The Australian government is spending an additional $70bn on defence spending compared to the previous government, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says.

Marles was asked about demands by the Trump administration that countries, including Australia, lift defence spending as a percentage of GDP.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who also holds the defence portfolio, says the government does not think about defence policy in terms of percentage of GDP as the figure will change depending on how the number is calculated.

For example, Marles says, using accounting methods adopted by NATO countries, Australian defence spending is at 2.8% of GDP.

The important point is this: When you include what we are spending here, it is the better part, relative to what we inherited when we came to government back in 2022, of an additional $70 billion of defence spending over the decade and what that represents is the biggest peace time increase in our defence spending in Australia’s history.

So it is a hugely significant amount of that we have been putting into defence since we’ve come to government, and this is all about focusing on the way we do things, with I is to look at what our strategic challenge is, what sort of Defence Force we need to build in order to meet that and then resourcing it.