Defence spending

ACT is whining about our low level of defence spending again, saying that we should "concentrate first on addressing future threats to our security".

What future threats are those? Australia? Nauru? Penguins from Antarctica? No-one is threatening us, and given our location at the arse-end of the world, no-one is ever likely to (or rather, no-one that we can defend ourselves against; anyone who can threaten us can also walk all over us). The only reason we even have an army is so we can give the loonies who like to play with guns something to do that doesn't endanger the rest of us.

I'm happy to spend "only" 0.9% of GDP on defence; hell, I'd be happy to spend less. But I certainly wouldn't be happy spending more. The government has far more important things to spend our money on - like health, education, welfare, or basic policing.