If Chris Luxon is proud of our nuclear-free position he should not be leading a centre-right political party

Sunday, 21 June 2026

Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.

OPINION: During a cold evening in late January 1940 the First Lord of the Admiralty, one Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, gave a speech on the dire situation on the continent. Chamberlain was still Prime Minister but the MP for Epping gave a sombre assessment on neutral powers seeking refuge in anonymity.

He did not name these minor states but examples would have been Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway or Ireland.

“Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured.”

Now. Pete Hegseth, the American Secretary of War, is a poor substitute for Sir Winston but he made a similar point last month when he remonstrated that, referring to New Zealand’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, spending on defence: “Two per cent is freeloading. I don’t have anything against New Zealand, I want partners to step up.”

Major Hegseth is getting ahead of himself. New Zealand is not spending 2% of our GDP on defence - this is our aspiration. The budget expenditure for the coming years is a little under $6 billion. Our GDP is $445 billion.

Now, I am an insolvency practitioner - not a profession known to attract the brightest but I can work out that 2% of 445 is a few pesos shy of nine. We are as close to that as I am to my healthy weight and while the projections do show an increase in spending, this largely mirrors anticipated growth in GDP.

Meanwhile, away from the headlines is the 2025 Defence Capability Plan announced by the departed Minister of Defence, Judith Collins. This 25 page pamphlet is mostly glossy pictures, schematics of antiquated military hardware and an outline of $12b of additional spending over fifteen years.

It isn’t a plan. It is a public relations document. We do not take defence seriously. We are relying on obscurity, hope, along with the tyranny of distance, and prefer others do the dying and pray the good guys prevail. We are following Ireland’s strategy, not Switzerland’s, to avoid falling prey to any east Asian crocodiles.

Meanwhile, our Australian friends are ramping up and have committed to acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, joining the large and powerful US atomic fleet. New Zealand sits secure behind a phalanx of Australian and American military power and much of that is, or will be, fuelled by uranium. Above our long-white-cloud remains the unofficial nuclear umbrella linked to Washington’s strategic ambiguity.

We spend pennies on our own defence, are unable to make a meaningful contribution to collective security and compound these offences by turning away potentially nuclear-powered vessels whose duties include protecting these islands.

It is against this backdrop that I was delighted to hear the new Minister of Defence, Chris Penk, when discussing our nuclear-free stance, state the obvious; “…it would be helpful I think for us to have that conversation in New Zealand”.

Penk is correct. This policy is a legacy of when we mistook David Lange’s oratory for strategic relevance. We thrilled to see ourselves on the world stage as we rebelled against Uncle Sam confident that there would be no consequences. The Americans would not do to us what Moscow had recently done to Poland.

Here was an opportunity for our current prime minister to demonstrate leadership. To build on the success (rhetorically, if not economically) of the budget and let New Zealand know that, in Premier House, we have someone willing to tackle the difficult issues where our national interest is at stake.

Luxon did the other thing. He is “very proud of our nuclear-free position, and it ain’t changing while I’m prime minister”.

Now. OK. Sure. It could be that Mr Luxon is very proud of our nuclear-free position but if he is, then he should not be leading a conservative centre-right political party, although the alternative explanation is that he doesn’t. It is more probable that he wants to reflect popular sentiment and lacking any centre of gravity himself, finds this intellectually untroubling.

We maintain the illusion of purity, our toga untarnished with the grubbiness required to defend our interests in the near abroad. Not for us the whiff of uranium on our breath. No. We exhale nothing but hypocrisy.

It is probable that political reality prevents the legislation being changed, but to fail to even advance the case is inexcusable.

If he is unwilling to assume the responsibility that comes with his office, and defence of the realm being the first of those, perhaps he should leave the path unhindered for those of his ministers willing to pledge more than hope, debt and cheers.