A third of national capital budget allocated to the military: Government

Traditionally, the government has measured defence allocations as a percentage of gross national product (GNP), or as a share of total government spending. In recent years, the total defence budget, inclusive of pensions, has been slightly over 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and 16-18 per cent of government expenditure.

But now, the government has put forward in Parliament a new, and more telling, metric, which is the defence capital allocation as a percentage of the national capital spending. Facing pressure to increase the capital budget, which buys new weapons and equipment, the government is arguing that defence