David Cappy

There are plenty of countries on that list that he spoke fairly warmly of that aren't spending 3.5%.

So I don't think New Zealand is going to get to three and a half percent and nor do I think it should.

But I think what it needs to do is to say, hey, what do we need to spend for our own reasons, for our own interests?

And I think that is significantly more than we have been spending in recent decades.

So New Zealand spends about $5.5 billion a year on defence, which is currently about 1.2% of our GDP.

But if you think about that, that's 15,000 people across the defence force.

That's a pretty big workforce.

And I think, you know, that's not a lot.

By international comparisons, that's a low level of defence expenditure.

Well, I think to answer that question, you need to look at the world.

And I think it's probably something that's come home to every New Zealander in the last five years is that the world is becoming a much, much more dangerous place.

We're seeing an international system in huge amounts of flux.

So we've seen, obviously, war return to Europe and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine.

We've seen war in Gaza and in the Middle East.

And we've seen coercion begin to be much more acceptable for big powers.

And I think there's a sense that the world that New Zealand used to think of its security could be provided by distance and also by the workings of international institutions like the UN.

I think there's a real sense that that world is rapidly disappearing in the rearview mirror.

And so I think that raises the question of what are we going to do for ourselves?

And what are we going to do with our close partners and our ally Australia?

And I think that's why this government and also the government before it has realised that we need to step up and invest more in defence.