Defence spending to remain modest
The Herald reports:
Up to $20 billion will be spent on New Zealand’s Defence Force over the next 15 years, the Government revealed today, including a scaling-up of operations in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica and a greater focus on defending against cyber attacks.
The long-awaited Defence White Paper, released at Parliament this morning, earmarked funding equivalent to 1 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP for defence – around half the amount spent by Australia and the United Kingdom.
1% of GDP on defence is around half the world average. Here’s what some other countries spend:
- US 3.5%
- Singapore 3.1%
- Greece 2.3%
- France 2.2%
- UK 2.0%
- Estonia 1.9%
- Australia 1.8%
- Italy 1.5%
- Norway 1.5%
- Finland 1.3%
- Spain 1.2%
- Germany 1.2%
- Denmark 1.2%
- Sweden 1.1%
NZ First is saying maintaining at 1% is not enough, that it should be 2%. That would mean an additional $2 billion a year in defence spending.