A new RNZ poll reveals about half of voters think New Zealand should increase its defence spending.

The government is set to reveal its Defence Capability Plan any week now and has made it clear there will be an increase in expenditure to respond to the increasingly "volatile" world New Zealanders find themselves living in.

It comes on the back of increases announced by Australia, the United Kingdom, and several other European nations, and at the same time the new Donald Trump administration is signalling to the rest of the world that it needs to step-up its contributions.

In the RNZ-Reid Research poll respondents were asked 'as a country, should New Zealand be increasing its spending on defence?'.

Of the 1000 online respondents 50.3 percent said yes, 31.9 percent answered no, and 17.8 percent said they didn't know.

Defence Minister Judith Collins and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon both told RNZ they think New Zealanders are well aware the country is no longer operating in a benign strategic environment, and consequently an increase in defence spending is needed.

"We have a strong set of values and it's important we actually back that up with our actions and a stronger defence spend is certainly part of that," Luxon said.

ACT Party leader David Seymour echoed those sentiments, telling RNZ: "It's critical New Zealanders support a greater spend on defence for the simple reason that other countries, both friends and allies as well as potential strategic competitors, are spending a lot more on defence than we are.

"Pacifism is a very romantic and wonderful ideal, but also a brutal way to get caught out as many people in the long lens of human history have found out," Seymour said.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said an increase in spending was "justified", regardless of whether "New Zealanders support it or not".

"We have to recognise we live in a very volatile world now and we do need to focus on the type of capability our Defence Force needs to have."

READ MORE

• Washington wants defence 'burden sharing' from New Zealand
• Our defence budget under scrutiny
• Judith Collins: Testing the waters: Global focus sharpens on the Indo-Pacific
• Defence capability plan pushed back as tensions rise in the region

He said if a series of simultaneous events, such as natural disasters, aid delivery, and military combat commitments all happened at once, the Defence Force "would really struggle" under that sort of pressure, and "we do need to take that seriously".

Co-leaders from both the Greens and Te Pāti Māori said defence spending should be concentrated on peacekeeping and having the public infrastructure necessary to respond to weather and climate crisis events, in the Pacific, for example.

The US and China: friend, foe, or neutral?

The poll also asked respondents how they viewed New Zealand's relationship with both China and the United States, and whether they categorised the country as a friend, foe, neutral, other, or they didn't know.

The majority of voters viewed both countries as 'neutral' - 48.6 percent in regards to China and 41.7 percent for the United States.

Some 21 percent regarded China as a friend, 16.8 percent as a foe, 12.6 percent didn't know and 1.1 percent responded with other.

For the United States, 32.9 percent characterised it as a friend, 14.3 percent as a foe, 10.1 percent didn't know and 1 percent responded with other.

When RNZ asked Collins how she thought the public would view those relationships, she doubted China or the United States would be seen "in a certain way", adding that "often there are personalities involved".

On whether President Trump's return might influence New Zealanders' views on the United States, Collins said: "most people realise presidents have a set time in the United States - four year terms - unlike some other countries we work with where presidents seem to be there for life".

"America has been a long-standing friend of New Zealand and I think people need to remember the relationship goes back a very very long way."

She said China was also a "good friend to New Zealand in many ways, particularly around trade but also in all sorts of areas".

Luxon characterised the United States as being a "long serving partner of New Zealand", but in response to how New Zealanders might view China he said, "I think they understand the broader environment across the Pacific is more contested".

"There's more geo-strategic competition in the world in general and it's a lot more volatile place, and with that in mind New Zealand needs to be very clear about its own national interests."

In summarising the dynamic with the United States, Luxon instead leaned on New Zealand's constructive working relationship with the superpower.

"There's a lot more we need to do together to make sure we have prosperity and security in our region, and as a Pacific country they've got an important role to play."

Seymour told RNZ he hoped people would see both countries as friends of New Zealand.

"There are very positive connections with both countries, whether it's tourism, expatriates living in both countries in both directions, or trade - they're all very good things.

"There's also areas where we clearly differ, but on balance I think they're both friends," he said.

RNZ asked Foreign Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters how he thought the public would characterise the two countries.

He said "you'll have to do a survey of New Zealanders to find that out, because usually we do one or the other - no one's asked the question about both of them at once".

Hipkins' view was that some people would be sceptical of Donald Trump, while others would "recognise that Donald Trump is not all of the United States" and the rest would be strongly supportive of the country.

As a result, he said much like China there would be "mixed views" but "overall New Zealanders would probably be reasonably neutral" - taking into account the strong opinions either side.

Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer described the relationship with the United States as "archaic" and said New Zealand should do more to question the values of America, and whether they align with Aotearoa.

On China, however, she said the relationship was an important one, from a trading perspective.

Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said she was more interested in New Zealand's independent foreign policy approach than "big powers who are going to consistently use us as little pegs in-between their geopolitical agenda".

This poll of 1000 people was conducted by Reid Research, using quota sampling and weighting to ensure representative cross section by age, gender and geography. The poll was conducted through online interviews between 21-27 March 2025 and has a maximum margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. The report is available here.