Rudd, facing national polls on September 7, said moving Sydney Harbour's Garden Island base to Queensland in the east and Western Australia could improve the nation's ability to sustain operations in the Asia-Pacific.
"Our national security challenges of the future lie to our north-east, to our north, and to our north-west," the Labor leader said in a foreign policy speech.
"That has been the strategic logic of Australia's defence policy for the last 30 years.
Rudd said the approach underlined Canberra's enduring interest in regional stability and would better facilitate Australian military responses to humanitarian crises in the Asia-Pacific.
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A move would also take defence personnel closer to their fields of activity and at the same time open up Sydney Harbour to the growing cruise ship industry, he said.
Rudd said if re-elected he would establish a future navy taskforce to advise on how best to move some or all of Garden Island's Fleet Base East to Queensland and Perth, in Western Australia.
It would also advise on "developing, upgrading or expanding" bases in Darwin in the Northern Territory, and the northern Western Australian town of Broome.
Australia is seen as a critical pillar in the US "pivot" to Asia and the rebalancing of its military strategy, with hundreds of American marines already stationed in Darwin.