I wrote a long and detailed email to Parliament requesting that the New Zealand government start matching the Australian government in terms of percent of GDP spent on aid to Ukraine.

In short, even as a percentage of GDP New Zealand's aid to Ukraine has been almost 3 times lower than Australia's, and I would like the government to fix this. I Tweeted parliament here. Please like, retweet and reply.

The email is as follows:

Request for New Zealand to match Australian aid to Ukraine by percentage of GDP

I believe that aid donated by countries as a percentage of their GDP is perhaps the most fair way of comparing the amount donated by different countries.
Obviously total aid will depend on the size and wealth of the country, and amount donated per capita will favour richer countries. By measuring amount as a percentage of GDP it takes into account both differences in size and wealth.

But even taking this fair measurement, New Zealand is still considerably lagging behind Australia in its support for Ukraine.

The numbers below are my own calculations, and there may be some minor mistakes due to lack of information but if you look at the figures in the Ukraine Support Tracker (it goes up to August 3rd so is slightly out of date), you can see their numbers are similar: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker/

In the Ukraine support tracker the number they came up with is 0.023% of GDP for Australia (rank 26) and 0.008% of GDP for New Zealand (rank 33). According to the support tracker Australia is doing almost 3 times better than New Zealand as a percentage of GDP!

My numbers are as follows:

So far New Zealand has donated 40 million NZD in total in aid to Ukraine. This is about 8 NZD per person and is about 0.011% of our GDP. (348 billion NZD GDP)

Australia has so far donated closer to half a billion AUD to Ukraine (I count 497 million AUD from looking at the government website). This is 20 AUD per person and is about 0.026% of their GDP. (1957 billion AUD GDP)

For comparison Great Britain has contributed about 0.24% of its GDP (US figures are similar to the UK) and Estonia has contributed about 0.83% of its GDP. This shows that even Australia's aid for Ukraine has actually lagged significantly behind the UK, but I consider NZ matching Australia on percentage GDP to be a reasonable expectation.

I would like to see New Zealand matching Australian percentage of GDP figures. This would mean we would need to have donated more than double what we currently have to this point.

Here is a breakdown of the different areas where New Zealand and Australia have donated for comparison. Some of the figures below are quite hard to find exact numbers on, but the total so far across everything is 40 million NZD. Note that Australian GDP is 6.26 times as high as New Zealand's, so any time a ratio is higher than 6, Australia has donated more relatively speaking:

1. Military

NZ total: 30 million NZD (estimate as this includes things other that direct financial aid)

NZ has donated $9 million to the NATO trust fund, $7.5 million to the UK procurement fund, $4.1 million for commercial satellite imagery, plus NZDF intelligence, C-130H Hercules operation, NZDF logistics specialists, NZDF artillery trainers, some surplus helmets and body armour.

Australian total:

388 million AUD (435 million NZD)

Australia has donated 60 Bushmaster armoured vehicles, 28 M113 APCs and 6 M777 155mm Howitzers and a whole bunch of other things.

Australia has also donated 8.7 million AUD to Ukraine's border guard service, which would raise the military aid figure even higher if this was included under that.

Conclusion: Australia has donated 14.5 times as much military aid as New Zealand in total. Even as a percentage of GDP this is still more than double what NZ has provided. New Zealand could remedy this by donating artillery and armoured vehicles and contributing more to the UK procurement fund and the NATO trust fund.

2. Humanitarian

NZ total: 8 million NZD

AU total: 65 million AUD (73 million NZD)

Conclusion: Australia has donated more than 9 times as much humanitarian aid as NZ. As a percentage of GDP they have still donated more. But both countries haven't actually donated that much compared to military aid.

3. Diplomatic and Legal

NZ total: 2.315 million NZD

$1.315 million to ICC, $1 million for human rights monitoring.

AU: 1 million AUD to ICC and two staff

200,000 AUD for Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to help protect against chemical attacks.

1 million AUD to the International Atomic Energy Agency plus 686,000 AUD in radiation equipment.

Conclusion: This is perhaps the only area where New Zealand's contributions have been comparable to Australia's.

4. Energy assistance

NZ hasn't donated anything.

Australia has donated 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal worth 32.6 million AUD.

There have been recent reports that the true civilian casualty figure in Mariupol may be in the tens of thousands. No one knows for sure because this area is still under Russian control. It seems likely however that what will be found once the Russian military leaves areas like Mariupol will be truely horrendous and much worse in terms of numbers than what happened in Bucha. In fact we are already starting to see evidence of mass graves in the recently liberated city of Izium.

What is happening in Ukraine is not a political game. People are dying everyday in large numbers, many of them civilians. New Zealand should be doing everything it can to assist Ukraine.

Regards,

Finn