Will the Kiwi's ever have an airforce again?

Since the decission to disband the combat element of the Airforce the Royal New Zealand Air Force has had no means of protecting it’s skies and that of it’s territories. The main reason for the loss was cost, inorder to free up money to upgrade the other two services, one had to suffer.

F-16’s were looked at and agreed upon to replace the Kahu’s but when the Clarke gpvernment took over, this deal was dropped and then so was the Fighting force.

I was thinking, with some countries producing cheaper fighting aircraft, could the Kiwi’s possibily afford to look at gaining back this important capability?

Say they decided to, What then would they buy and how would they distribute they? How many would they get? Would they buy planes off the secondhand market, or would they buy something new and cheap like Mig-29’s or L-159’s? And what trainers would they look at? For the price of a squadron of F-16’s from the US, they could buy two squadrons of fighters and a squadron of trainers from China. Sure it’s not a real possibility, but it is worth considering. FC-1’s and K-8’s in the RNZAF would be a rather cheap alternative considering they really don’t have both personel and money.

Any thoughts?