A brass band but no details on the dollars IN a US Presidential style announcement complete with a brass band, troops, fighter jets, helicopter and army vehicles, Prime Minister Julia Gillard today launched the government's Defence White Paper promising 12 new advanced fighter jets and a shipbuilding boon for Melbourne and Adelaide. The government has also promised not to cut defence spending in this month's budget and has pledged to build 12 Australian designed submarines in Adelaide under the nation's biggest ever capital project and to bring forward other shipbuilding projects to save skilled manufacturing jobs. It has also promised to buy 72 Joint Strike Fighters once their bugs have been ironed out. What the document doesn't say is how much these projects will cost or when the funding will be provided. Opposition defence spokesman David Johnston described it as smoke and mirrors and given the latest polls, he will face the daunting task of converting the smoke into cold hard cash. Senator Johnston has vowed to tear up the 130-page White Paper after the election and to produce his own within 18 months. Importantly he has promised to include a complete funding roadmap for every project in his first strategic plan. In a bizarre ceremony in a freezing hangar at RAAF Base Fairbairn, with dozens of shivering navy, army and air force personnel standing behind the PM and in front of two Hornet fighters and a navy helicopter flown in at vast taxpayer expense for the launch, Ms Gillard said the global economic and strategic shift to the Indo-Pacific region meant growing prosperity and increased risk. Unlike Kevin Rudd's 2009 document and its aggressive language about the rise and threat of China, the 2013 version welcomes China's growth and the benefits that that has delivered to the rest of the world. Rather its policy is aimed at encouraging China's peaceful rise and ensuring that strategic competition in the region does not lead to conflict," the White Paper says. It also makes the point that China's defence spending grew by 140 per cent between 2000 and 2013 and that it was now equipped with aircraft carriers, submarines, ballistic anti-ship missiles and prototype stealth fighter jets. The White Paper its at pains to point out that the relationship between the US and China and competition between the two will determine the security outlook for our region. "Australia sees the most likely future as one in which the United States and China are able to maintain a constructive relationship encompassing both competition and cooperation," the document says. Hopefully this month's federal budget will include some indication of the funding plan to deliver the capabilities that will be needed to defend the nation for the next 50 years. With more than $50 billion of unfunded undertakings there is a lot of work to be done and a lot of cash to be found.