Finally, a serious boost to defence spending

Judith Collins announced:

The Coalition Government today released a multi-billion dollar plan for a modern, combat-capable New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) that pulls its weight internationally and domestically. 

“Global tensions are increasing rapidly, and New Zealand has stepped up on the world stage, but our current Defence spending is simply too low,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.

“This new Defence Capability Plan contains $12 billion of funding over the next four years, which includes $9 billion of new spending. This will raise New Zealand’s defence spending from just over one per cent of GDP to more than two per cent in the next eight years.

This is perfectly timed, and much needed. As the United States withdraws from the world, we need to be prepared to work with allies to protect our values and territory. We can’t freeload off other countries and only spend 1% of GDP on defence, when everyone else is spending 2% or more.

This graph shows how massive the increase will be. We will get back to a level last seen 30 years ago. The world was a lot safer in the mid 1990s than it is today.