$2BN NAVY SPEND ON THE TABLE: REPORT

The new government may spend $2 billion to build a fourth air warfare destroyer and shore up 5000 naval shipbuilding jobs in four states, The Australian Financial Review reports.

According to the newspaper, defence minister David Johnston said no option had been ruled out to stem job losses predicted between the end of the navy's large shipbuilding projects in 2016-17 and the start of work on a new fleet of submarines from 2018-19.

During the election campaign, the coalition criticised a Labor plan to bring forward the construction of some projects to save the jobs.

But Senator Johnston said some of the navy's ageing ships needed to be replaced and a white paper to be released within 18 months would have a broader plan for naval shipbuilding, the AFR reports.