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.