Defence spending is like insurance – you have to pay for it but you hope you never have to use it. And the higher the risk you face, the higher your premium will be.
New Zealand has now committed to paying those higher defence insurance premiums. The government’s 2025 Defence Capability Plan, released in April, includes NZ$9 billion in extra funding over the next four years. That’s a sizable increase on a current annual budget of just under $5 billion.
