 In outside Africa now, Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia was burned about 28 billion dollars out to 2040 to expand its active defence personnel by a third to keep the country safe in an increasingly uncertain global environment. The country has been boasting its defence spending over the past few years as China looks to step up its presence in the Indo-Pacific region. Last year it entered into a deal to buy nuclear submarines from the United States and Britain. The planned expansion would seed a number of the defence personnel rise to 80,000, a level not since the Vietnam War. The defence minister Peter Dutton said it was critical to supplement Australia's capabilities to make it a credible partner of the United States, Britain and NATO. The biggest increase in the size of our defence forces in peacetime in Australian history is a significant vote of confidence in our defence forces, but it's a significant recognition by our government which has always been cleared-eyed about the threats and the environment that we face as a country as a liberal democracy in the Indo-Pacific. And today I'm announcing that we will boost our defence forces by some 18 and a half thousand which will take our defence forces to 80,000 in number. Now this will cost some 38 billion dollars out to 2040 and this is a significant investment in our future force. We have an outstanding defence force. When you look at what's happening in Europe at the moment, people who believe that President Putin's only ambition is for the Ukraine don't understand the history that our military leaders understand. If people think that the ambitions within the Indo-Pacific are restricted just to Taiwan and that there won't be knock-on impacts if we don't provide a deterrence effect and work closely with our colleagues and with our allies then they don't understand the lessons of history.