{"id":453648,"date":"2026-05-31T05:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/453648\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T05:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T05:14:08","slug":"defence-minister-chris-penk-defends-new-zealand-military-spend-after-us-criticism-at-shangri-la-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/453648\/","title":{"rendered":"Defence Minister Chris Penk defends New Zealand military spend after US criticism at Shangri-La Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rGEveXCr\" style=\"display:none\">Hegseth\u2019s comments come <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/budget-2026-boost-to-defence-spending-as-surge-to-2-of-gdp-continues\/FOW3DNKV5NDURIRF6KYHNXROIM\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/politics\/budget-2026-boost-to-defence-spending-as-surge-to-2-of-gdp-continues\/FOW3DNKV5NDURIRF6KYHNXROIM\/\">just two days after New Zealand laid out a financial plan<\/a> aimed at boosting defence spending to just over 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) over eight years \u2013 a far cry from Hegseth\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Defence Minister Chris Penk.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Defence Minister Chris Penk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rGEveXCr\" style=\"display:none\">Penk also noted that New Zealand provides and receives great value through its involvement in surveillance network Five Eyes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rGEveXCr\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWe receive the insights of the other four nations within the network in ways that help us to understand the threat environment further afield, but also, at times, closer to home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rGEveXCr\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cAnd we do provide value in return, in terms of intelligence that we are able to obtain, and we share with those other partners. So, it is very much a two-way street.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rGEveXCr\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThere\u2019s value for us in being valued by others. We are respected and a credible member of the Five Eyes network. So, they [the US] always reflect to us that that\u2019s important to them, but, because it\u2019s in our interest, we will continue to be involved along those lines,\u201d Penk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hegseth\u2019s comments come just two days after New Zealand laid out a financial plan aimed at boosting defence&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[23545,74,230757,1975,3276,5782,3054,1403,3039,34763,2837,230135,71,119299,647,6722,117,111,43,139,69,98905,40290,312,3045,66408,9739,9345,14040,16124,1361,3040,18324,80],"class_list":["post-453648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accusing","tag-after","tag-amounted","tag-at","tag-chris","tag-comments","tag-criticism","tag-defence","tag-defends","tag-dialogue","tag-during","tag-freeloading","tag-from","tag-hegseth","tag-military","tag-minister","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-penk","tag-pete","tag-says","tag-secretary","tag-shangrila","tag-singapore","tag-speech","tag-spend","tag-surprised","tag-that","tag-us","tag-wasnt","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}