Professor Robert MacCulloch: The PM and his Mates Have Left NZ Defenseless....

The PM and his Mates Have Left NZ Defenseless with No Allies, and Unable to Pay for our own Security

After National was elected, NZ lost 20% of its navy when Manawanui sank in 2024. Defense Minister Collins announced it wouldn't be replaced. At that time, world headlines blared, "NZs proposed defense budget will be 7% smaller than the current year's .. even as the armed forces struggle with ageing equipment, a shortage of manpower & ambitions for a greater regional role .. The new budget .. would put NZ’s defense spending at 0.9% of GDP, down from 1% in the current year".

You'd never know it, since PM Luxon has been in Vietnam & on the radio, telling NZ & the world he's doing the opposite. When National was elected in 2023, the PM's defense policy became: talk up becoming some type of member of AUKUS (the Australia-UK-US security partnership) & thereby get it done for free. After that speech, the Coalition cut defense spending as the economy fell into stagnation. In the meantime President Trump was elected. Now there's no way America would pay for NZ's defense alone, since it is demanding that any country it partners with spend at least 3% of GDP. So PM Luxon's corporate strategy has gone up in smoke. 

Chinese battleships are in the Tasman. The Cook Islands has done a deal with China. The PM fired off about China on both matters. He says that he knew nothing about what was going to be in the agreement with China & still doesn't know much about what has been agreed. Either he's lying or should resign his one Portfolio - namely being Minister for National Security & Intelligence. The whole point of our Intelligence Services is to know about such matters.

Meanwhile a bunch of the PM's mates & informal advisers have been slamming Trump in articles in the Media, like lawyer Partridge, the NZ Initiative Chair. His latest is called, "Trump's War on Constitutional Democracy". It says, "Would-be autocrats rarely declare themselves dictators overnight. Instead, they gradually accumulate power by declaring emergencies, dismissing institutional checks as illegitimate & replacing professional bureaucracies with personal loyalists". DownToEarth.Kiwi takes its hat off to NZ's Coalition, the PM & Initiative Chair. What a performance: attack America's President for going to war on democracy. Attack China for going to war on democracy. Cut defense spending when security is most insecure. Pretend NZ will up that budget when the PM is not sincere since he's running a $20 billion budget deficit. Preside over NZ's biggest intelligence failure by not having a clue what Cook Islands were up. NZ now has no allies & no money to protect itself. 

Maybe we've uncovered the problem - a failure of intelligence sitting in the Beehive, from a Centre-right government that's meant to stand for security above all else. Anyhow, the truth is that NZ's problems lay more within our shores than overseas. No wonder the PM doesn't want to talk about foreign affairs, nor the Treaty. Just economics. That's my subject & I don't know of a single high IQ individual who's competent in such matters & sits in PM Luxon's inner circle. Instead he runs to Kiwi manager / CEO types like himself. They're the problem. Most "manage" bankrupting state-supported monopolies. Most have BCom / LLB law degrees. NZ's old-school thinking doesn't cut it anymore in the new world.

Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.