Press Release - Poster campaign: the many better ways to spend Defence’s $16 million per day
A nation-wide poster campaign by Just Defence is calling attention to some of the trade-offs New Zealanders have to make to fund the military.
“Schools, health services and social support services are being either neglected or actively run down by the Coalition Government, while they are approving huge increases in defence spending, in order to placate our so-called allies”, said Kevin Hackwell, spokesperson for Just Defence.
“Boosting military spending comes at a cost, and the posters point out the huge discrepancy between the pressing needs of ordinary kiwis and those of the military establishment.”
“In the 2024-2025 Budget, Vote Defence, Vote New Zealand Defence Force, Veterans’ services and Service Academies in Schools together cost us $6,004,890,000*. That works out at $16.46 million a day.”
“The government has recently announced that defence spending will get a huge 37% increase over the next 4 years. This huge increase will come at the cost of maintaining and improving many essential services that New Zealanders desperately need.”
“The posters show that for one day of present defence spending, we could fund 890 hip operations, employ 144 registered nurses, 174 midwives, or 211 teachers for a year.”
“For less than two days of spending on defence, we could pay for free prescriptions for everyone for a year.”
“And just one hour’s worth of defence spending could pay for 216 cataract operations.”
“Essential services for ordinary people come at a very small cost compared to the excessive, and in our view, dangerous expansion of the military that the government is proposing.”
“As a very small country in a militarised world our most sensible role has always been leadership for peace, diplomacy and disarmament.”
“Now is the time to reaffirm our nuclear-free stance and assert an independent foreign policy. New Zealand should not blindly follow our increasingly erratic, so-called allies, into a war with China; our major trading partner.”
The poster campaign coincides with Just Defence’s launch of an ActionStation petition to Defence Minister Judith Collins calling on her to abandon plans to increase the defence budget and to instead freeze defence spending.
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* The present $6 billion spending on defence does not include the cost of the surveillance and intelligence services we contribute to the Five Eyes partnership; the Government Communications Security Bureau and Security Intelligence Service.
Contact for further comment
Kevin Hackwell.