Thats not correct. With no fighters an agressor only needs to overmatach the P3K and 2 frigates, so a modern SAM destroyer and a couple of frigates would be sufficient and there's pleny of countries that could do thst. However with only 24 F16s such a force would be mincemeat, the requirements to overmatch that becomes a carrier or forward basing of a robust and balanced air wing. The countries able to put such a force together, and the circumstances in which they would do so, because vanishingly small. A country crossing that threshold would provoke a collective security response. So that's what a fighter force does, raises the stakes for an agressor so high that NZ will never stand alone.
Yep, ninja'd.