Defence not buying any killer drones, MPs hear

The money the military has for drones is not being spent on any killer weapons, the Defence Ministry says.

Defence leaders have outlined to a scrutiny hearing at Parliament on Thursday what the ministry was aiming to buy or develop under the $12 billion defence capability plan (DCP) that runs to 2029.

Defence secretary Brook Barrington told MPs the drone budget is constrained.

"It's only for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It's not as a weapons system.

"So we are ourselves not buying autonomous weapons systems," said Barrington.

"We are buying drones to see and to carry, but not to carry or to discharge weapons."

Officials and politicians were of one mind, that no one wanted to go walking "blindly into the wild west" of lethal autonomous weapons with no international rules around them, he added.

The Defence Force has experimented with drones that can be armed for several years but has said it had no armed machines in its small but growing fleet that includes aerial and sea-surface drones.

Previous defence minister, Judith Collins, said in the wake of the DCP released over a year ago, that it was OK for Defence to acquire weaponised drones provided a human was operating them and they only killed other soldiers.

Barrington said they had to be smart with what they bought so costs did not escalate as technology or requirements changed.

Labour MP Damien O'Connor asked who was developing ethics for engagement with drones.

"I hope we're not going to the Israelis for that."

It was critical the public knew what the critical drivers were, O'Connor said.

RNZ reported recently that NZDF does not have a doctrine on drone use.

Defence Minister Chris Penk replied the question was very relevant and timely.

"Clearly that is ongoing work as the technology itself develops but I know that careful thought is going into the doctrine and the tactics and even the strategy about how these are deployed," Penk said.

The degree of control would depend on the type of drone and doing the job at hand "with the lightest touch possible".

Barrington said the country was carrying on with efforts to implement a 2021 Cabinet mandate for international regulation of lethal autonomous weapon systems.

In Defence's long-term insights briefing earlier this year, they were at great pains to talk about norms and domestic and international laws.

"We do not want to walk blindly into the wild west when it comes to drones able to deliver lethal payload without a human actor being involved."

He added New Zealand could not choose to purchase based on country but could based on product or on humanitarian law.

"We are not purchasing anything from Israel," Barrington said.

O'Connor also asked if Defence was seeking advice on drones from potential partners in AUKUS.

Penk said it was premature - the government had made no commitments though it was interested in developments in AUKUS.

The three-nation arrangement between the US, UK and Australia is currently being used to lower military technology trade barriers and pave the way for co-production between the three partners, under its so-called Pillar Two.

New Zealand has been considering joining Pillar Two for years.

Defence Force chief Tony Davies said they had a lot of plans underway around uncrewed systems, though it was important to note "a lot of the time it won't be cheaper" or involve fewer people.

They needed operators and maintenance, and if they were used far from New Zealand - Budget 2026 put an undisclosed amounts towards long-range surveillance drones in the Pacific and Antarctic oceans - or sometimes even coastally, that required satellite links for mission data and control.

"We've still got work to do there as well in terms of satellite coverage," Davies said.

The NZDF uses the American Wideband Global satellite network that it has paid to help expand over the years, as well as recently getting access to Elon Musk's Starlink satellites while just beginning to look at how it might use Musk's classified Starshield system.

National MP Tim Costley asked if Defence was agile enough now that tech was changing so fast, given how long systems had taken to roll out in the past.

Barrington said they were changing from looking to buy, say, a frigate, to looking to buy a "capability", then asking industry what ways it could meet that which was much more flexible - and including in that, local industry who could even act as mini-primes (a prime is usually a big defence contractor like Lockheed Martin).

"Firms themselves - they are responding to those incentives. So there are lots of firms out there now basically saying, 'We are developing this', 'We have developed this, 'Have you thought about this?'."

One of the most recent changes to a long-running tech rollout added tens of millions of dollars to a communications upgrade for the army's new Bushmaster vehicles, with the extra sums agreed on late last year by the Cabinet.