John MacDonald: Spend up large on defence, we have no choice

Spend up large. That’s my message to the Government. Go large, spend up big and drag our military into the 21st century. That’s not me having a go at the military, by the way. Anyone reading this at Burnham Camp, for example, might feel like I’m having a go at them. But I’m not. But, what I am saying, is that we need to be spending more on defence - and I’m not saying that just because of what’s going on out in the Tasman, with those three warships from China. A situation that went next level on Friday and over the weekend, with the live firing exercises. I say next level - but we also need to remember that China isn't breaking any laws. It’s fully entitled to have those ships there because they’re in international waters. My view last week was that we needed to calm the farm about the ships being out there. It wasn’t time for us to start banging on the table and getting on the blower to Beijing and giving China’s president what-for. And I’m not saying this just because of what’s been happening over the weekend - but I agree with Defence Minister Judith Collins when she says we have no choice but to to invest heavily in our defence forces. And she says it won’t just  be a one-off investment, either.  Over  time, it will be billions of dollars. As she pointed out on Newstalk ZB today, successive government over the last 30 years have underinvested in the military.  And Judith Collins says defence personnel are up for it. But are you up for it? Because it’s very easy to say ‘oh yeah, buy more planes, buy more ships etc", but when you ask people where the money's going to come from, they don’t have an easy answer to that question. Reason being: there isn’t an easy answer. What do you spend less on So more money can go into the army, navy and air force? Finance minister Nicola Willis will give us a bit of an answer to that when she delivers this year’s Budget in a few months.  But, right now, the bigger question is whether we support the idea of the government pouring a truckload more money into our military. I do. There will be people who don’t. But, according to one defence expert, what happened on Friday and over the weekend might actually it an easier sell for the Government. This is Professor David Capie from the Centre for Strategic Studies at Victoria University. He’s saying that the live firing exercises forcing commercial airlines to divert to avoid the area makes the situation much more significant than it was last week. And he’s going as far as saying that the warships are “a gift from Beijing” to our government, to help it convince us of the need to spend more on defence. I’m convinced already. But what about you?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.