'We can afford more drones, but not more homes'

Army, Navy and AirForce personnel in ceremonial dress: an ongoing staffing exodus means we may get more ships, drones and planes but not have enough ‘boots on the ground’ to use them. Photo: Lynn Grieveson

Long stories short in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning:

PM Christopher Luxon says the Government can afford an extra $12 billion to ‘enhance the lethality’ of the NZDF’s planes, drones and artillery. Previously, he has said there ‘isn’t enough money’ for more housing, social welfare and infrastructure spending because debt reduction is more important. Luxon says the United States was happy New Zealand plans to almost double defence spending to 2% of GDP.

However, defence staff advocacy group Mission Homefront said the new spending plan failed to address the pay and housing needs of existing staff, meaning the money would be spent, only to have ships tied up, planes stuck in hangars and drones left in boxes because of an ongoing staffing exodus.

(There is more detail, analysis and links to documents below the paywall fold and in the podcast above for paying subscribers. If we get over 100 likes from paying subscribers, we’ll open it up for public reading, listening and sharing, although we’d love it if you subscribed to join The Kākā’s community and support making this journalism public. Students and teachers who sign up for the free version with their .ac.nz or .school.nz emails are automatically upgraded to the paid version for free. Our special offers right now are: $3/month or $30/year for under 30s & $6.50/month or $65/year for over 65s who rent.)

'We can afford more drones, but not more homes'