New Zealand’s new defense minister says he will push for enhanced integration with Australia to counter increased tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. Chris Penk, who became New Zealand’s 44th minister of defense in April 2026, is the first defense minister to have served with both Australian and New Zealand forces. He served on His Majesty’s New Zealand Ship Te Kaha and in the submarine squadron of the Royal Australia Navy.
Penk has been a member of Parliament in the House of Representatives since 2017 and previously served as associate defense minister. In his new role, he will have the space as well as the defense portfolios, including the Government Communications Security Bureau and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service. He will also lead the implementation of New Zealand’s 2025 Defence Capability Plan, aimed at increasing investment in the NZDF.
“The main focus in terms of the Defence Capability Plan will be ensuring that we get good value for taxpayer money. It’s obviously not just a matter of spending the dollars for the sake of being able to say we’re making a commitment,” Penk told the Manawatū Standard newspaper. “We need to make good decisions that reflect the nature of warfare, and nonconflict operations as well, in the 21st century.”
The NZDF wants to be increasingly integrated and interchangeable with the Australian Defence Force (ADF) by 2035, according to the website DefenseNews. The initiative involves embedding personnel in each other’s units, sharing capability development and synchronizing training to operate as a joint force in response to a deteriorating security environment. New Zealand has participated in a number of exercises and other activities related to AUKUS, the trilateral security partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, with a particular focus on AUKUS Pillar 2, under which partner nations seek combined, interoperable capabilities, including electronic warfare systems, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic technology, cyber capabilities and systems leveraging artificial intelligence. In March 2026, the ADF and NZDF announced they would join forces to fortify cyber resilience. Under the agreement, Australia will provide New Zealand with enhanced technical support and access to the Persistent Cyber Training Environment-Unclassified, a training and exercise platform developed by the U.S. Department of War, according to the announcement.
The collaboration “enhances our ability to detect, respond to, and recover from real world cyber threats across the Pacific, ensuring the NZDF remains a trusted and capable partner,” said Royal New Zealand Air Force Group Capt. Paul Drysdale, director of Information and Cyberspace Operations. “The platform scales easily to meet the NZDF’s changing needs — whether we are preparing small specialist teams or larger joint forces.”
Penk traveled to Australia in late April to begin discussions on increasing the two nations’ integrated force.