Soldiers in camouflage uniforms and gear board a military transport aircraft on a sandy landscape under a partly cloudy sky. An orange vertical banner on the left reads "THE BULLETIN.
NZ soldiers board a C-130 Hercules at Kiwi Base, Bamiyan province, Afghanistan, in 2020. (Photo: NZDF)

The BulletinApril 8, 2025

‘A big step up’: government unveils multi-billion-dollar defence plan

Contributing writer
Soldiers in camouflage uniforms and gear board a military transport aircraft on a sandy landscape under a partly cloudy sky. An orange vertical banner on the left reads "THE BULLETIN.
NZ soldiers board a C-130 Hercules at Kiwi Base, Bamiyan province, Afghanistan, in 2020. (Photo: NZDF)
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It’s been delayed, debated and revised. Now the defence capability plan is here, and it’s huge, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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Big risks, big shift

With the world hurtling toward a new era of geopolitical volatility – encouraged along by Trump’s collapsing of the global economic order – the government has finally delivered its long-awaited defence capability plan. The 15-year roadmap outlines $12 billion of investment over the next four years alone, most of it new money, with a goal of lifting defence spending to 2% of GDP. Work on the plan began under the last government, and was delayed not just by the change of government, but also by other factors including the sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui in October.

Announced on Monday by defence minister Judith Collins and prime minister Christopher Luxon, the plan includes missile upgrades, drone systems, long-range strike capabilities and the replacement of ageing aircraft and maritime helicopters. Luxon said the plan wasn’t just a refresh, but “a significant step-change in our defence spending and also our capability”.

Military spending no longer an afterthought

The government’s push for a modernised, “combat-capable” NZDF is driven by what Collins says is a much more dangerous world, and a growing recognition that distance no longer guarantees safety. Defence personnel “cannot do their jobs without the right equipment and conditions”, she told reporters on Monday. “This plan outlines what resources, equipment and support we need to modernise the NZDF to operate now and in the future.”

Collins previously told the Herald’s Jamie Ensor that the intercontinental ballistic missile launched by China in the Pacific last year “changed the game”, and the government now sees the Indo-Pacific region as far more contested. That belief was reinforced in February, when Chinese vessels conducted military drills near the Australian coastline. In February Luxon noted that “we’re certainly no longer in a benign environment”, and stressed the need for New Zealand to invest in regional security alongside Australia and other allies.

Voters are on board – just

Defence is an issue on a growing number of voters’ minds. The recent RNZ-Reid Research poll found that just over half of voters (50.3%) think defence spending should increase, with a further 17.8% unsure. Collins said she believes the public now “understand the broader environment across the Pacific is more contested”. When asked how they would characterise China and the US, most respondents to the poll chose ‘neutral’ for both countries. But 21% saw China as a friend and 16.8% as a foe, compared to 32.9% who viewed the US as a friend and 14.3% as a foe. Labour’s Chris Hipkins told RNZ that even if the public are wary, a spend-up is “justified”, warning that the NZDF would struggle in the face of multiple concurrent disasters or military commitments.

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Keeping up with the rest of the world

New Zealand is far from alone in ramping up military spending. Australia, Japan and Canada have all begun boosting their defence budgets in recent months, and UK prime minister Keir Starmer recently committed to raise spending to 2.5% of GDP from 2027. Meanwhile, Trump has called for Nato allies in Europe to lift spending well beyond the old 2% of GDP benchmark, to 3% or even 5%. New Zealand’s defence spending is currently around 1.5%.

On Monday Collins and Luxon tried to strike a pragmatic tone, saying the 2% figure is less important than building a defence force that “is actually going to work for New Zealand”. But they also know that investing in capabilities like drones, cybersecurity and maritime surveillance will be critical to any bid to participate more meaningfully in alliances like AUKUS. With this plan, New Zealand is signalling that it wants to be taken seriously – and that it’s willing to put money behind that ambition.

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A composite image shows the Tino Rangatiratanga flag outside the NZ parliament
Image: The Spinoff

The BulletinApril 7, 2025

Treaty Principles Bill enters its death throes

Contributing writer
A composite image shows the Tino Rangatiratanga flag outside the NZ parliament
Image: The Spinoff
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A record-breaking consultation process ends with the select committee recommending the Treaty Principles Bill be scrapped – and Act claiming victory anyway, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.

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Recommended for the bin

It was always going to be a bumpy ride, but few expected the Treaty Principles Bill to detonate quite so spectacularly. On Friday, the justice select committee recommended the bill not proceed – unsurprising, given its near-total rejection in the 300,000-plus submissions received. Of those, 90% opposed the bill, just 8% supported it, and the rest were on the fence. Submitters ranged from school students to the New Zealand Law Society and a phalanx of 50 King’s Counsel, reports Liam Rātana in The Spinoff.

Former PM Jenny Shipley called the bill “reckless” and warned it could lead to “civil war”; Dame Anne Salmond said the process was “dishonest”; Te Pāti Māori described it as a “campaign of misinformation and division”. The select committee held 79 hours of oral hearings across five intense weeks. As the crowds at November’s Hīkoi mō te Tiriti demonstrated, opposition to the bill was not only intellectual or legal, but widespread and deeply personal.

A reversal on the record

Last week, at the eleventh hour, a new controversy appeared in the near-exclusion of tens of thousands of submissions from the official record. The committee had wrapped up its work a month before the deadline, despite the record-breaking volume of submissions – an “appalling lack of process” according to Labour’s Duncan Webb. In the end, a late motion from Act’s Todd Stephenson ensured all submissions could still be tabled. As clerk of the House David Wilson tells RNZ’s Phil Smith, under normal rules, once a committee has reported a bill to the House, its work is over and it is unable to add anything more to the bill. The change means the committee “can continue to deal with [the submissions] as if it still had the bill” though they won’t be part of the report. Instead they’ll be added to the permanent archive, a move welcomed across party lines.

Second reading looms

Despite the recommendation to scrap it, the bill will still receive its second reading – possibly as soon as this week – thanks to the National-Act coalition agreement. It will almost certainly be voted down, but not before another round of speeches in the House. The NZ Herald’s Thomas Coughlan argues it’s time for the PM to front, given it’s been a “long time since we heard a Prime Minister deliver a speech of substance on Crown-Māori, summing up where the country has been and where it is going”. Luxon’s silence on the bill is in keeping with parliamentary precedent, but Coughlan makes the case that this is no ordinary bill. “Now is the time for such a speech – if not in the debate itself, then perhaps soon after the bill is dispatched.” Especially, he notes, as Luxon owes his premiership to the compromise that let it come this far.

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A political loss – or a strategic win?

No legislation means no treaty principles referendum – at least not this time. But Act leader David Seymour remains undeterred, arguing that “New Zealanders are ready to have this discussion”. Joel Maxwell, writing in Stuff, isn’t so sure the tide of opposition to the bill tells the full story. Public polling has shown a more nuanced picture, with a large chunk of the electorate unsure where they stand.

While most political parties have firmly rejected the bill, Act has gained something else: visibility and momentum. “Even as it gets the stink-eye from its coalition partners… Act can probably feel that even if it has not yet achieved its current goal in politics, it has succeeded politically,” Maxwell concludes. The bill may be headed for the legislative scrapheap, but the argument it sparked isn’t going away.