Andrew Dickens: Defence spending is necessary, but expensive

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Apr 7, 2025 · 1m · transcript

The news that New Zealand is going to spend 12 billion dollars on defence is not news to welcome, and yet it is welcome news.

In an unsettled world, defence is essential. And the equation for a credible defence is spending 2 percent of GDP.

So now within 8 years we’ll get to that target - it’s a doubling.

The question is why we are only just doing this now.

If we’d spent that for the past 30 years we would not be facing so dramatic a spend today.

But we didn’t. Fat and complacent in a mistaken belief that we were safe and sound, and if something went wrong our friends would come and save us…