Coalition defence policy was woeful. Labor must make massive changes

But Mr Marles and Anthony Albanese may yet make the current Labor government the champion in national-security failure. It all depends on what they do with our rotten defence policy after they received a report from a historic review of it on Tuesday.

It would take a lot to beat Julia Gillard's government for irresponsibility in national security, since it cut 2013-14 defence spending to an outrageous 1.56 per cent of gross domestic product, the lowest ratio since 1938.

Anyone who was paying attention could already see then that a worrying threat from China was rising and we had to get moving to prepare for it.

The Coalition was better insofar as it got spending up to about 2 per cent of GDP. But its three prime ministers appointed a parade of six (six!) defence ministers who almost completely failed to control our inadequate military establishment.

As previously under Labor, spending plans kept following decades-old patterns that the armed services found comfortable and congenial - plans that failed to focus on the threat rising to our north.

China's military build-up and aggression were sending a screaming signal for us to reshape our forces to prepare for an air and maritime war. But Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton preferred to follow the army's orders and buy equipment good for Middle East campaigns.

Things are even more urgent now. If Albanese and Marles fail to move like lightning to get our armed forces focused on the China threat, this government may turn out to be nothing less than a national catastrophe.

They have already spent nine months in office without taking certain high-priority defence measures that were obviously necessary without endorsement by a review.

Now they have the report. It will not be published in full - it's too secret - but within a few weeks we should hear about a first batch of measures; others will probably dribble out during the rest of the government's term in office and some could even appear after 2025.

Here's the simplest way to judge whether Marles has exerted control and is doing his job: watch out for the value of cancelled or deferred army programs. The total should be something like $40 billion, money that can be used to strengthen the air force and navy and reorient the army for an air and maritime war.

If the minister says he's spending so much as one dollar to improve the army's ability in the next decade to fight ground battles, then the brass is still getting its way and he's blowing money that should be used for facing China.

There is hardly any chance that we would be forced into large-scale ground fighting within a decade.

The second thing to look out for is speed. Not everything we need can be delivered and made operational in only a few years, but we must hear of some capability improvements that will be in place and effective by 2025 or soon after.

One will surely be toughening and expanding our string of northern air bases. I'll be amazed if it's not in the review report. As this column has repeatedly mentioned, we need more thick concrete up north.

Pour, baby. Pour.

Also look out for measures to assure fuel supply to bases.

Next, the reliable and economical way to bolster our forces quickly is to buy more aircraft of types that are already in Australian service and still in production. Reportedly, one review recommendation is to buy more F-35s; they should be used to stand up a fifth fighter squadron and maybe a sixth.

As Lockheed Martin churns out F-35s, Airbus can build A330 MRTT tankers, which make other aircraft far more effective, and Boeing can paint kangaroos on extra P-8 Poseidon maritime patrollers. Other companies can quickly produce aircraft of a few other really useful types that we already have in service or on order.

Marles had better say that additional aircraft will begin flying into RAAF bases within two or three years.

We need to increase ammunition stocks. Our defence force is notorious for skimping on ammo, especially costly missiles, wrongly assuming the Americans will quickly supply what we need in an emergency. The government will surely step up efforts to fix this, but it rightly will be cagey about how many rounds it will acquire and when. Ammo stocks are a crucial secret.

The government is looking at quickly building up the navy by building corvettes - small, weak warships that might be commissioned by the end of the decade. Also, Arafura-class patrol ships that we're now building could be armed as corvettes.

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Such ships would be useful for escorting convoys at reasonably safe distances from Chinese forces, but don't get excited about them as magnificent reinforcements of the fleet.

Nuclear submarines, on the other hand, will be simply colossal reinforcements of the fleet - but when?

If Marles mentions a date for commissioning the first that's later than 2033, there had better be a powerful explanation, because that's how quickly US shipyards could do the job if we paid to ramp up their capacity.

And if the government says it will buy anything but stock-standard US Virginia-class submarines, ask why - because that's the excellent design that's in production now. Anything else will take longer to get into service, maybe a lot longer as engineers struggle to make a new design work.

Albanese and Marles inherited an utterly inadequate defence policy. They must announce massive changes.