Dear Treasurer Frydenberg,

Given the polls aren’t looking flash for you and ScoMo, ADVANCE and our 190,000+ supporters thought we could give you some tips for the 2022 federal budget you’re releasing next week.

Although this is by no means an exhaustive list of what needs to happen for Australia to have any fighting chance of protecting our borders, it would be a good start and guarantee you re-election in May.

1. Legalise nuclear energy. Josh all you have to do is remove four words – ‘a nuclear power plant’ – from Section 140A(1)(b) in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Commonwealth).
2. Instead of funding the Kurri Kurri gas plant (that will sit within the world’s largest thermal coal basin), invest in three new HELE coal-fired power plants on the eastern seaboard to keep power prices down.
3. Double defence spending and quadruple the $5 billion you’re spending on Land 8113 missiles. Given our submarines and frigates won’t be here until the mid-2030s (best case scenario), we need long-range striking capability on our northern frontier. The only way to gain this capability quickly, is off-the-shelf missiles.
4. Take back the Port of Darwin and the Port of Newcastle from the Chinese Communist Party.
5. Cut ALL spending to the ABC.
6. Instead of printing money to keep interest rates artificially low, have the Reserve Bank finance the construction of the Bradfield Scheme. Although it's good to see Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce announce $500 million for the Urannah Dam in central Queensland, it’s not enough. We want the Hells Gate, Herbert River and Flinders River dams built. We want this water to flow down to Lake Eyre and/or the northern extremities of the Murray-Darling via aqueducts/pipes. We want our farmers to have water rights once again.
7. Reduce the size of Australia’s bloated public service.
8. Back Project Iron Boomerang. For too long, the Australian economy has relied on exporting our resources at wholesale prices and reimporting them refined at retail prices. Instead of selling our iron ore and coking coal to Chinese steelmakers, we must connect our Pilbara iron fields with our Bowen coal fields via rail and establish steel mills at either end to establish a world-leading large-scale steel industry that would undercut Chinese prices.
9. Invest in new oil and gas fields. Whether it’s the Beetaloo Basin or the north-west shelf, we need more supply and we need onshore refining capabilities.
10. Cancel ALL federal subsidies to renewable energy.

Get on with it and win the next election.

Otherwise, keep trying to appease everyone from your centre-right base to the green-left, and lose the next election to a Labor-Greens coalition in a landslide.

Your choice mate!

We hope you get it right…