Defence is in "real-time discussions" on how Australia will fulfill Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky's request for Bushmaster armoured vehicles, made in his video link address to the parliament.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison confirmed that Australia "had every intention to help".
"We will send our armoured vehicles, Bushmasters, [and] we will fly them over in Globemaster C-17s to make sure they can be there to support," Mr Morrison said on Friday.
The Prime Minister thanked Mr Zelensky for addressing the Australian parliament and "reminding not just all of us who are in the Parliament last night but all the Australians of what is at stake here when you have one nation bullying another - a democratic nation whose territorial sovereignty has been violated and war crimes being committed in the Ukraine by Russia."
Confusion erupted in the budget estimates hearing being held on Friday morning, with Defence officials unaware of whether their minister or the Prime Minister had or had not announced "up to four" vehicles for Ukraine's defensive efforts against the Russian invasion.
The department was asked overnight to present options after the plea for the Australian-designed vehicles. Officials were not aware of the announcement by the Prime Minister or the Defence Minister.
The department's associate secretary Matt Yannopoulos advised the estimates hearing that he had just been informed the Defence Minister Peter Dutton had announced up to four vehicles, apparently during a media interview.
"I think I've just seen an announcement by the Minister for Defence ... I was just shown a message [that] we will make available four Bushmasters," Mr Yannopoulos told the hearing.
But that was incorrect - a factual casualty of departmental officials keeping watch both on their senior leaders in estimates and on their minister.
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Defence Force chief General Angus Campbell had not been told of a decision, he admitted, but postulated that the minister may have been describing a hypothetical as the Air Force's C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft could each fit up to four Bushmaster vehicles.
Labor senator Penny Wong also asked about Hawkei light protected vehicle, of which about 400 were paid for by Army but sitting idle in Bendigo. Ukraine had not raised Hawkeis in its requests but General Campbell told the hearing a range of ideas were being considered.
"We may get to Hawkeis. Not at this stage," he said.
Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne told the hearing she had contacted Mr Dutton's office and confirmed that advice had been sought on the availability of Bushmasters and their capacity to be deployed, and transport options, but a decision had not yet been made.
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Mr Dutton had said he was open to the possibility of sending Bushmasters or "whatever support we can".
"The other option is to try and source something out of Germany, out of France or elsewhere in Europe and maybe that's a more practical way of getting them there more quickly because the urgency is obviously there."
Harley Dennett
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
Former federal politics bureau chief for the Canberra Times, via a career that's taken me from rural Victoria to Washington DC. Telling the stories of my local LGBTI community brought me to political journalism, where I've covered eight budgets, four national elections in two countries, Defence, public service and international governance.
