Defence Amendment Bill

I move, That the Defence Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee to consider the bill. Before outlining the details of this bill, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women of the New Zealand Defence Force. There are hundreds of New Zealand Defence Force personnel deployed overseas, from Timor to the Solomons to the Sinai to Afghanistan, and various places in between. These men and women and their families make tremendous personal sacrifices in the call of duty. I want to especially acknowledge those Defence Force personnel who in recent times have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of their country. In particular, I want to pay tribute to Corporal Ben Carson, Flying Officer Dan Gregory, Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell, Private Kirifi Mila, Corporal Doug Grant, Lance Corporal Leon Smith, Flight Sergeant Andrew Forster, and Squadron Leader Nick Cree. Their sacrifice is a sobering reminder of the risks that New Zealand Defence Force personnel run in the course of their daily work so that national security and international order might be maintained. I especially want to acknowledge the loved ones of these men who have lost so much.

Turning now to the bill, the bill amends the Defence Act 1990 and supports the Government’s commitment to making sure New Zealand has a strong and effective Defence Force, fit to deliver against 21st century priorities. This bill implements Government policy set out in the Defence White Paper 2010. The development of the white paper was the first comprehensive direction-setting exercise for defence since that undertaken by the previous National-led Government in 1997. Before the 2008 general election, a commitment was made to undertake a wide-ranging defence review, and this has been subsequently honoured. An extensive programme of public consultation was undertaken around the country. Over 600 written submissions were received from individuals and organisations, including the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association, the Peace Movement Aotearoa / New Zealand, and from within the Defence Force itself. An independent value-for-money review complemented the review process, and the Government appointed an independent panel of experts to test key assumptions underpinning the review.

The result of all this work was a thorough assessment of New Zealand’s security outlook, defence priorities, Defence Force tasks, and the military capabilities and organisational structures required. The white paper drew together the recommendations of the review and its supporting exercises to set an overall direction for defence for the next 25 years. Two major steps have already been taken to put in place the outlined strategy. Firstly, the Defence Capability Plan, released last year, set out a framework for acquiring the military capabilities that the Defence Force will need to perform its tasks. This plan sets out the path through to 2020 for equipping the Defence Force as an integrated and coherent joint force.

Secondly, there has been significant organisational reform within both the Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence. The value-for-money review identified the need for the middle and back areas of the Defence Force to match the efficiency and effectiveness of its front line. The New Zealand Defence Force has been making significant progress in improving its teeth-to-tail ratio to reflect white paper priorities and best practice, building and empowering deployable resources.

The means for acquiring military capabilities and managing them over their whole of life has also been significantly reformed. The Defence Amendment Bill gives the Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence the powers they need to meet the white paper goals. These changes will make both organisations more efficient and enable them to work together more effectively.

In its first term, the current Government inherited a host of defence acquisition decisions that were experiencing long delays and operational deficiencies. Independent reviews highlighted areas where improvements needed to be made. This bill addresses those deficiencies by clearly defining the responsibilities and accountabilities of the Secretary of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force. The roles of the secretary and the Chief of Defence Force are in particular redefined with regard to the management of military capability to ensure that their duties are undertaken in consultation with each other. The bill also supports this obligation to consult by providing for the sharing of, and mutual access to, information held by the Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence. The Ministry of Defence’s capacity to deliver advice that offers a comprehensive view of the links between policy on the one hand and military capability and funding on the other, has also been recently strengthened. This strengthening of capability, alongside the reforms in this bill, means the Government will have done all that it can to put into practice what has been learnt from past acquisition projects.

To enhance the management of the Defence Force overall, the bill makes changes to the role of the Chief of Defence Force. The Chief of Defence Force will formally command the armed forces rather than doing so through the chiefs of the three services. This is vital to the one-force approach of the modern Defence Force and is key to ensuring that the three services work more effectively together, as is required by the increasing sophistication of modern-day military operations. Providing the Chief of Defence Force with direct command of the armed forces will also allow greater clarity and accountability in undertaking the required organisational reform that has been set out in the white paper. The Chief of Defence Force will also be appointed and held accountable for his performance under more transparent arrangements. This bill provides for the State Services Commissioner to make recommendations for the appointment of the Chief of Defence Force. This is a practice that has developed over recent times and should be codified in legislation.

The Minister of Defence will also be empowered to appoint the commissioner or another suitable person to review the Chief of Defence Force’s performance. The process for removing the Chief of Defence Force from office, should this ever be necessary, will also be clarified by the bill. To support the Chief of Defence Force’s role as direct commander of the armed forces, this bill establishes the Vice Chief of Defence Force as the statutory deputy. The Vice Chief of Defence Force will be mandated to serve as acting Chief of Defence Force if required. The vice chief will also become a statutory member of the Chiefs of Service Committee and preside over that committee in the absences of the Chief of Defence Force. The bill provides for the Vice Chief of Defence Force to be appointed by warrant by the Governor-General in council, whereas the chiefs of the services will in future be appointed by the Chief of Defence Force after consultation with the Minister. This development will reinforce the position of the Chief of Defence Force as direct commander of each of the services.

To support improvements to the Defence Force’s front line, the bill enables the Chief of Defence Force to redesignate a back-office military position as a civilian position. Former military personnel will be able to fill these new civilian roles. Redesignation of military roles to civilian ones is an important efficiency measure for the Defence Force. It enables military resources and personnel to be used for modern military purposes: national defence, maritime patrol, humanitarian relief, and upholding New Zealand’s values at home and abroad. For roles where the impressive skill set of uniformed personnel is not required, the extra costs of having military staff performing these jobs simply denies resources for the front line.

Finally, the bill also addresses confusion that has arisen around the duties of reserve forces and part-time forces. To clear up this confusion the terminology in the Act will be amended. The “active reserve” will refer to part-time members of the armed forces and the “inactive reserve” will refer to former members of the armed forces who have a residual obligation to serve if called upon. This bill advances the comprehensive plan for the future of the New Zealand Defence Force, which was set out in the white paper. The bill provides the New Zealand Defence Force with the command structure and administrative capabilities it needs in order to build a 21st century Defence Force. I commend this bill to the House.

If I can begin, as the Minister of Defence did, by acknowledging the work done by the men and women of the New Zealand Defence Force. As a Minister, I had the privilege of working with them over 9 years in deployments in all parts of the world. I have the greatest respect for their efficiency, for their courage, for the way they carry out their operations, and they do this all on a very tight budget. We are a small country and we made hard decisions when we were in Government about what we could sustain and what we could not. There is no talk in this Defence Amendment Bill about an air combat force, for example. National made a lot of fuss about the abolition of it, but it has never talked about bringing it back.

I have the greatest respect for the Defence Force, but, you know, the one word I did not hear in the Minister’s introduction of this bill was what the bill was really about—and that is a three-letter word called “cut”, or “cuts”, actually, in the plural. Because what this bill is about is what we learn in the briefing to the incoming Minister of Defence, Mr Coleman—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: “Dr Coleman” to you, sonny.

Dr, if he prefers; if he stands on his title.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: “The Maestro”.

“The Maestro” to some, for his extraordinary performance in the Mt Albert by-election. Well, I want to come back to what the Minister did not talk about—[Interruption]

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! Interjections are not to be between members, but at the speaker. We have two members here who are interjecting on each other.

The briefing to the incoming Minister gives it away and I just want to read one sentence: “Cabinet has directed an annual recurring savings target for the New Zealand Defence Force of $350 million - $400 million by 2015.” What this bill is about, and what the intention of the Government is, is to cut $400 million a year from the Defence Force. And you cannot, Minister, talk out of both sides of your mouth by talking about respect for those in the Defence Force, their sacrifice, the risk they put themselves under, and at the same time pull the rug out from under the Defence Force by slashing expenditure by $400 million a year.

Elsewhere, of course, in this briefing for the incoming Minister it refers to the Territorial Force, which is also included in this bill. And what does it say about that? They are going to cut it by one-third—cut the Territorial Force by one-third. Six hundred people are going to be down the road in the Territorial Force. Now I want to say this about that aspect to the Minister. Since 2000 more than 1,000 of the Territorial Force have served this country overseas in war zones in deployments. But for the Territorial Force, the regular force would have been under real pressure. Forget what this bill says about the Territorial Force; it is what the Government is doing to it that counts and it is gutting it by slashing it by one-third—one-third.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is all very interesting, Mr Goff’s opinions here, but a first reading speech is meant to be about the content of the bill and we are not really hearing any of that.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): No, I do not need any help. The reality is that the member, of course, is entitled to have some form of rebuttal. He is coming to the end of that now, and I am sure that he is coming to the point of the bill.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, a major thrust of this bill is about a thing called capability management, and I think everything that my colleague Mr Goff has said has been very germane to that theme. If the Minister does not know his own bill, he should read it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Thank you for your contribution.

The bill is, indeed, about lifting the capacity and the capability of the Defence Force, and what I am saying is that you have got meaningless clauses in this bill renaming the Territorial Force as the Reserve Force, but what is really happening about capability and capacity is that National is gutting it by cutting it by one-third—600 people down the road. I want to ask the Minister what this bill does to sustain regular forces if we increase our deployments overseas, when you need to call on Territorial forces to back it up. If he is going to cut the Territorial Force by one-third, renaming it the Reserve Force is just an exercise in hypocrisy. It will not be there as the Reserve Force; one-third of them will be down the road. Interestingly, it will be the areas of the country—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The member knows he cannot use the “h” word in here.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Actually, I was about to raise that. The member is quite right. You cannot use the “h” word here.

Speaking to the point of order, Mr Speaker. I was not calling the Minister a hypocrite; I was saying that the bill was an exercise in hypocrisy, and that is within the Standing Orders.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Well, the thing is that as a Speaker one has to look at the content and the atmosphere in the House at the time. If it is going to lead to disorder, then one has to be careful in the way in which one uses it.

In everything about this bill, every area that is covered in the bill, the Government is taking retrogressive actions to damage the capability of the Defence Force. I have talked about the Territorial Force. I could talk about the military bands. You know, it is going to save $900,000 by slashing seven out of 10 of the military bands. That is the same amount that it was planning to spend on a flash swimming pool in Tokyo. I have got to say that it is far more important to me that on Anzac Day this year, when we turn up at the parades, the seven bands that will be disbanded will still be there, but they will be playing for the last time. I ask the Minister why it is that his actions are going to lead to seven out of 10 of those military bands being disbanded. Who will be playing on Anzac Day? Who will be out there on Armistice Day? Who will be there at the commemorative ceremonies that are required for us to celebrate the Defence Force, which he talks so much about and about their sacrifice? Who will be there to stand up and remember that by providing the military bands that accompany those parades? I say that is the wrong thing.

Of course the bill is also about civilianisation. Well, that is another word for redundancy. There are 500 redundancies that have occurred in the last year in the Defence Force and two-thirds of those are uniformed people. I ask the Minister this: in the process of civilianisation, how is it that I hear of uniformed people in high positions who have been made redundant and end up in the same position with the same salary and back in uniform after they have got their redundancy money? I ask the Minister whether that is happening and what he is doing about that, because that is a wastage of money, when supposedly what the Government is trying to do is save money.

You know, the only people who have made money out of the defence review and the white paper are the expensive consultants whom the Minister has employed. Rod Deane, the former Telecom chief, was very well paid for his job, but what does he know about the military? And there is some outfit called Pacific Road Corporate Finance, which made a lot of money. But what this bill and what the Government’s actions have been about has been undermining the military by cutting the funding of it. I want to say that the then Chief of Defence Force—that is, Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae—described the outcome of the defence review as “challenging”, and anybody who knows the Defence Force and the Civil Service knows that the word “challenging” is what public servants say when they think that the Government is halfway to la-la land. And that is what Jerry Mateparae said about it.

What the Government has not done is actually make the cuts that should have been made. Why is the Minister spending $400 million to $700 million on upgrading the air defence missile systems, when the only purpose of that is to allow the frigates to be up in the Gulf for maybe a month every 2 years and to perhaps please the United States? I say to this Minister, instead of cutting the defence personnel, and instead of undermining the morale of that organisation, cut where you can afford to cut on the “nice-to-haves”. It is a reflection on this Government that in the latest defence review survey of opinion, it shows Defence Force morale at the lowest level since the survey began—the lowest level since the survey began. Twelve hundred people have quit the Defence Force in the last 12 months—this in the midst of the Government’s recession. That shows you what the morale of the Defence Force is. And there is nothing in this bill that addresses that question. Having a good Defence Force is essential to New Zealand. Thank God for a Labour Government that put the money into capital acquisitions and building up the Defence Force.

This bill is about cutting. This bill is about reducing capacity. This bill is about a Government that talks big when it comes to the importance of defence, but does not back it up with action and the funding to provide an effective Defence Force and the equipment that is capable of serving the people who represent this country so proudly.

That was the “Minister of Profligate Spending”. That was the member who is complaining about 1,200 people leaving the Ministry of Defence, although more than 12,000 people left the Labour Party before this last election. That was the member who used to be Minister of Defence, and what value did you add to that process?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order! You mentioned me when you were addressing. Would you please refrain from bringing the Speaker into the debate.

This bill, the Defence Amendment Bill, comes from a process initiated by my very good friend Dr Wayne Mapp.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Come on, “Sir Les”.

He knew, Mr Cosgrove, when to leave this House, and he did it when he was a member of Parliament, not a list member of Parliament. During Dr Mapp’s tenure he initiated the first defence white paper in about 10 years. He was prepared to try to balance the Government’s policy objectives, the strategic outlook, with what we as a small country, with a smaller population than Sydney, can afford.

In my previous life as a diplomat, there were many occasions when I worked directly with the Ministry of Defence over many years. We worked with the army, with the navy, with the air force. We took goods to Bangladesh, we took materials to the Solomon Islands, I worked with them in Singapore and Malaysia, and we worked with them during the conflict between Papua New Guinea and Bougainville, and again on the Solomon Islands. I came to trust and value and highly regard our defence personnel, and I am really proud that this National-led Government is absolutely committed to making sure that the New Zealand military is a strong and effective force.

The white paper came from the perspective of ensuring that defence contributed to a safe and secure New Zealand—defence contributed to our safe and secure direction. The paper assumed we were operating in the environment of international order, which respects international law and order. We assumed we would be able to work with a network of strong international linkages around a sound global economy, surrounded by open trade routes. There have been occasions in our history when, in a violent world, the use of force is appropriate. Examples of those circumstances include a response—for example, if we had a direct threat against New Zealand or our close ally Australia, or towards a member of the Pacific Islands Forum, or if requested or mandated by the United Nations to contribute to one of their exercises, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. I think that the next 25 years are likely to be much more challenging than the last, and a rules-based international order is under pressure. International organisations are struggling to forge a consensus on a whole range of issues, particularly on issues around boundaries.

The other thing that is going on in this global world is that the balance of economies is changing. The threat of proliferation is growing. The South Pacific is a region of fragility. Tasks in and around New Zealand and the Pacific are the starting point for choosing the military capabilities of our military.

This bill strengthens a one-force approach. It is key to ensuring that our three services—army, navy, and air force—work together under one leadership.

We also need to keep in mind the independent, value-for-money review done by Dr Roderick Deane. He has said we should look at savings that can be made in the back office and in the middle part of defence, and bring resources to the front line. This bill is going to help reprioritise resources in that direction. We are going to put the right people in the right jobs.

The bill is going to change the way in which the Secretary of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force can work together regarding procurement, replacement, repair, and the disposal of assets. The bill is going to clarify the manner in which the Chief of Defence Force exercises command of the armed forces. It will enable the Ministry of Defence to advise the Minister on defence matters referred to it by the Minister when we set up a defence advisory board.

I commend this bill to the House. It is a good bill, and I look forward to its referral to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. Thank you.

That was an interesting speech from that member, who made quite a good contribution towards the end. He ran down a whole series of potential pressure points and, if you will, futuristic hot spots in our region. I turned to a colleague and I said—

💬 John Hayes: What’s your electorate?

It is all right, I am trying to praise you. I know this is difficult; nobody has in here, but give me a go. He actually made a valid point. I know this is a unique thing in Mr Hayes’ existence. But would it not be nice—would it not be appropriate, therefore—given all the illustration of the potential threats that our region may face, that we had a viable Defence Force? Would not that be the case?

I was reflecting on when I came into this place in 1999, and I made a speech along with others around the Defence Force. I recall the same sorts of issues coming up. If you look at the history of our country, you see that, bizarrely, even though Labour was the party made up in its original times of the odd conscientious objector and what would perhaps now be called a peacenik or whatever, it has always been, throughout our history, Labour Governments, not those who pontificate and the conservatives on the other side, that have put resources into our military. I know that is sort of a strange concept for Mr Hayes to reflect on, but in 1999, for instance, when we came to Government, I recall speeches in this House about a Defence Force that we inherited.

They served in Bosnia—M113 are the personnel carriers that were in Bosnia. The National Government had depleted the Defence Force budget so badly that we had the indignity of going to our allies the Australians—I think “Sir Les Patterson” was still in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade at that time—and asking the Australians whether we could borrow some armour-plate to weld it on to the personnel carriers, which could not keep up with the British trucks they were supposed to defend in Bosnia. Then, to cap it all off, Mr Hayes’ Government had the indignity of cutting it off with oxyacetylene torches to give it back to the Australians.

💬 John Hayes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Could you please clarify with the speaker whether Mr Hayes and Sir Les Patterson are the same person?

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): That is not a point of order; that is misusing a point of order to score a political point.

💬 John Hayes: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am sorry, it is a point of order, because if it is the same person, I am going to lay a complaint against him and ask him to withdraw.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I call the Hon Clayton Cosgrove.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would invite Mr Hayes perhaps to watch a wee bit of contemporary television; he can draw his own conclusions. The other person I was thinking of in my mind was Captain Mainwaring, but that was a different show. Mr Hayes, of course, does not like it; he likes to dish it out, but when the old feet are put to the fire he does not like it.

The thing that Mr Hayes has to realise about the history of his party, as I was saying, is that we had to borrow the armour-plate from the Aussies and weld it on. The personnel carriers could not keep up with the British trucks, and then we had to cut the armour-plate off and give it back to the Aussies. We inherited a Defence Force whose radios were not interoperable.

We inherited a navy where those geniuses in Mr Hayes’ Government—remember the Charles Upham? The ship, I mean—not to be confused with the great man, in case Mr Hayes is having a bit of a mind block. That was a great disaster from the National Government. It bought a ship with the great man’s name—his body resides in Papanui at the Papanui RSA—that ended up carrying oranges, lemons, or both around Spain. That is the history of the National Party, which every time it comes into Government talks tough about the Defence Force: how patriotic it is, how it stands by them.

In this bill, the Defence Amendment Bill, you have a deficiency in capability, and it is a National Government that comes in and makes the cuts. Mr Hayes made an interesting point. He used the old slogan: “We’re going to get rid of all these back-office flunkeys and we’re going to promote the front line—bolster up the front line.” Well, here is Mr Hayes’ problem. Of the 495 people made redundant last year, as my colleague Mr Goff said, 295 were uniformed staff—soldiers. I say to Mr Hayes that not one person was cut from the back office, the front office, the basement, or the attic of the Ministry of Defence headquarters—not one; not one of these so-called pen pushers, these back-office people whom Mr Hayes talks about.

So, as usual, this is the sort of bill that talks about capability, talks about efficiency, and talks about some lofty goals. But when the rubber hits the road, Governments, of course—it is Governments—send men and women out into harm’s way. Very rarely do we in this House get in harm’s way, although, judging by Mr Hayes’ demeanour, I think he may have been in harm’s way quite recently. Governments send the men and women in our Defence Force into conflict zones. What those men and women ask is two things: that the cause is honourable, and, secondly, that Governments that send them into harm’s way give them, the men and women, the equipment and resources they need to protect themselves, to protect their comrades, and to defend our country.

I remember, with other colleagues, in 1999 making a speech very similar to this after we inherited a National Government’s cuts—slash and burn—and after it had underfunded and cut the military. I just invite Mr Hayes—he might want to take another call, and his Minister might want to get up and make another contribution or have another speaker do it—to look at the redundancy plan. Not one person, a so-called, alleged, pen-pusher from head office in the Ministry of Defence, has been made redundant; it has been front-line capability.

As for the Territorial Force, I know, as every member of this Parliament will know, the greater difficulty that it is now for employers to put resource aside to allow their staff to engage in Territorial duties. I pay tribute to the armed forces who have put a hell of a lot of effort in the last number of years into promoting the Territorial Force, working with employers, explaining to employers the wonderful skills that those men and women, if they are exposed to Territorial engagement, will bring back to businesses, to the entities, and to the workplaces where they work. Now, of course, that is all up for grabs.

I notice that the balloon across the way has popped and gone silent. So I invite Mr Hayes, who does have some experience, I believe, in foreign affairs matters from when he was a diplomat, as he outlined the potential and futuristic threats that our region may have, to illustrate for us where these cuts are going to be extended to.

National members, of course, use the term “savings”. They say it is savings. That sounds quite a positive term, does it not? But what savings actually means is that you take resource from one part of an entity and redeploy it within that entity in another part. In this case they are taking resource directly out of the front-line staff, the soldiers, those whom they will send over to the conflict zones in the future, to protect this country and to protect this country’s interests.

So I invite Mr Hayes to reflect on that, and I invite him to reflect on how he is going to get the $400 million cut—and let us call it what it is; it is not a saving—by 2015 and, at the same time, sustain morale, such as it is. We have the lowest morale rating in the Defence Force survey, as Mr Goff said, since its inception. And it will go lower given that these resources are to be taken away.

Then the question is this. How are we going to encourage other New Zealanders, younger New Zealanders, people who are thinking of making a commitment to the Defence Force in the future? They may be thinking of making such a commitment today, especially given that we have extremely high unemployment, but even putting that aside, they may want to make a contribution to the Defence Force. They may want to sign up, put the uniform on, do the training, and go out and protect our country and serve our country. If I was a young person looking at this bill, I would be scratching my head and going “There ain’t no future here.”, when the resources are being stripped away by that Minister, Jonathan Coleman, by Mr Hayes, and by this Government.

This Government, of course, talks in some sort of nationalistic, patriotic way about supporting our defence forces, and what it will do to create efficiencies, but we know the real rubber that hits the road, which is masked by this bill, are the savage cuts that National makes in our Defence Force every time it gets in—every time. Look at the history, from 1990 to 1999. They did it, they cut it—they cut the Defence Force to the bone. Now National is back in again and history is repeating itself, as it has throughout the period, every time a National Government has been in here.

It was a Labour Government that increased the capability of the Defence Force, and, yes, we made hard decisions, and, yes, we made some controversial decisions, which some did not agree with. But, by God, we put resource into the navy, we put resource into the air force, and we put resource into the Territorial Force, and we put resource into the regular force. We did not come into the Parliament waving around a bill that says “How great thou art.”, at the same time as we were slashing and burning defence personnel capability, at the same time as we were asking men and women to go and serve their country and put themselves in harm’s way.

So I say to Mr Hayes that he is following a fine but tragic National tradition of slashing and burning the Defence Force, and I invite him to examine very, very closely where the cuts are coming from, what their frequency is, how they will be achieved, and how they will be achieved in the future. I look forward to him celebrating the cuts in the Ministry of Defence headquarters when he makes them.

Let me first pay tribute on behalf of the Green Party to the armed forces personnel, and particularly to the individuals, cited by the Minister of Defence, who have fallen in the line of duty. We pay tribute to those individuals and to the armed forces personnel generally. Notwithstanding any differences in policy, we remain all united in support of them.

The aim of this bill is to amend the Defence Act to implement Government policy as set out in the white paper of 2010. The bill addresses a number of administrative issues: redefining senior roles, sharing information, and strengthening ministerial advice. It also addresses a few issues of substance: terminating the Territorials and creating an effective active and inactive reserve force, and transforming some military positions into civilian positions. These changes might appear on the surface to be essentially administrative. It is tempting, perhaps, to go with the flow and simply support them. But we are all obliged, more so, to understand the strategic trends that have underpinned these changes and that informed the white paper and the Hunn report of 2002 before it.

The Hunn report noted that whether there should be two defence organisations or one depended on whether the then Government was prepared to amend and revise the Act. The problem, said the report, was cultural and attitudinal more than organisational and systemic. The report called for new cultural values to create a habit of mutual support and information sharing. It went as far as to recommend a single organisation.

The white paper set out the overall strategic direction for New Zealand’s defence over the next 25 years. It describes our defence policy as contributing to four overarching national security interests, and these are a secure New Zealand, a rules-based international order, a network of strong international linkages, and a sound global economy, as, I think, Mr Hayes identified in his speech. If that sounds like old, 20th century diplomacy, it is because it is. The Prime Minister, in his elliptical and carefree way, said that the white paper “looks at global security [and] the challenges New Zealand is likely to face,” kind of kicking the tyres, and it sets out the best approach to meet them. But having introduced the term “global security”, he slipped back into international diplomacy thinking.

The paper identifies the strategic outlook to 2035, concluding that the defence tasks over that period would remain much as they have been, albeit with potentially intensified demands. The main tasks in New Zealand and the South Pacific should be the starting point, the report said, for choosing the military capabilities. The requirements were to upgrade our military capabilities, develop a people-centred force, engage in organisational reform, and modernise the infrastructure, while making all of this affordable. With an uncertain strategic outlook there would be a need for a Defence Force that is responsive, versatile, and professional. The bill before us aims to implement these recommendations of the white paper. In short, it is a step closer to the reintegration of the New Zealand Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence in managing our defence capability.

The Green Party endorses change to our defence structure, in so far as it introduces greater efficiency and renders the force more effective in the pursuit of our overall strategic goals. But the problem arises with the identification of those strategic goals, because the Green Party has a different strategic vision of New Zealand from that of this Government. When the white paper emerged in November 2010, we said at the time that the report was a missed opportunity to formulate an independent and positive defence policy for the 21st century.

The paper explicitly stressed the benefits of New Zealand being a stalwart partner of the United States. It saw a need to lock into a defence relationship with Australia as “our principal defence and security partner.” The review failed to project further moves towards an independent defence policy, in the wake of our strategic move away from the US and Australia since the 1980s and our termination of the air combat force. New Zealand does not need a formal alliance with other countries to undertake military cooperation with them. We should be politically prepared, and militarily able, to cooperate in the South Pacific not just with those two countries but with others: the Island States themselves, and the larger powers in the Asia-Pacific region.

Indeed, the most far-reaching and positive thing New Zealand can do is develop a military capability operating through the United Nations. For the past 20 years the United Nations has been developing a coherent approach to global and regional stability. The seminal document An Agenda for Peace developed a conceptual framework for conflict prevention, peacemaking, peacekeeping, and peace-building. It called upon member States to provide it with a capability for a ready reaction force with rapid deployment capability. Some 10 years ago the Brahimi report took this a step further, calling for explicit mandates from the Security Council, clear operational mission objectives, and advanced exit strategies that reflect a proper goal accomplishment.

The UN Security Council resolved then to give peacekeeping and enforcement operations clear, credible, and achievable mandates. It recognised the critical importance of UN peacekeeping operations having a credible deterrent capability. Such operations needed to meet minimum conditions: a clear political objective, practicability of designated tasks, and compliance with international legal principles. The council called for a clear chain of UN military command, for unity and cohesion of UN force structures, for proper training and equipment, including UN military helicopters, for due risk-assessment capability, and for clear rules of engagement.

Over these last two decades the UN has developed significant capability and stabilisation force capability, notwithstanding the difficulties it has encountered and the poor troop behaviour of a few contributing countries, which incidentally falls short of the atrocious behaviour of some of our own political friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. The UN’s New Horizon initiative of 2009 for strengthening its military operational capacity is already making headway.

More recently at the world summit of 2005 the UN General Assembly reiterated the importance of the multilateral process. Member States acknowledged that we are living in an interdependent and global world, and that many of today’s threats know no national boundaries, yet all reaffirmed that the charter remains able to address the full range of threats to peace and security. That is to say, between the Hunn report and the white paper New Zealand reaffirmed that the UN charter is adequate to address all our security threats. So the focus cannot be on old-fashioned strategic alliance diplomacy. It needs to be on New Zealand’s contribution to both global missions through the UN and regional mission capability through the Pacific Islands Forum. Such a focus and capability would also be applied to resource protection in our exclusive economic zone, in those of our Island neighbours, and in the Southern Ocean and Antarctic waters.

We should be concentrating our resources where we can make the most positive contribution: in UN peacekeeping and peacemaking, in maritime surveillance, and in disaster relief. The white paper and this bill, which seeks to implement it, reflect a wrong strategic orientation for this country, and the bill sends the wrong political signals to our region and the world.

It is a question of world view. The National Party world view is based on an anticipation of hostility between nation States as the natural order. It is based on a felt need to keep a military combat capability for what even it concedes is a remote prospect of direct attack. It is based on a felt need to succour to the more militarily powerful countries with which we have a passing cultural affinity.

The Green Party world view is based on the need to cooperate with all nation States as a natural and realistic outlook in the 21st century. It looks to meet the needs beyond 19th and even 20th century alliances, whether formal through ANZUS or informal through protestations of good friendship, to the strengthening and the capacity of regional and global organisations. The white paper and this bill do not reflect that world view. They reflect a fundamentally different one, which we judge to be obsolete and dangerously misguided. It is with a solemn sense of responsibility, therefore, that we shall oppose this bill.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. I also want to pay my respects to what I consider to be a No. 1 Defence Force, not only here in New Zealand but around the world, and our long, long—if I can be so bold, a warrior Defence Force.

I will not speak too long. I think that the problem that we get into is there are too many so-called experts in the debate about what is needed for a Defence Force.

💬 Sue Moroney: Too many people who remember what National has always done.

That is a classic example of what I am talking about. The expert from down in the South Island—sorry, Hamilton—has been all around the world and she knows everything! So we should just leave it to her.

The fact is that this Government is committed to having a strong and effective Defence Force. It is a Government that wants to enhance that one-force approach. It is a Government that knows that the services have to work together and be responsible and accountable to their masters—I suppose their pay masters. Whoever is in Government, whether it is them or us, we rely on the Defence Force to do what I consider to be a very, very good job. Ever since Johnny was a young boy in the militia days, fighting in the new nation of New Zealand, Defence Force personnel have borrowed, have stolen, and have begged for other materials from other people. I know that that will continue, regardless of how much money we put aside for the equipment and how much money we put aside for the defence of this nation and our interests overseas.

I have no qualms in commending the bill to the House. It is a new era. It is a new time, and we must keep in step with the times. We must keep pace with the times. We can all laugh at Clayton Cosgrove talking about Les Patterson, but the reality is that we can stand here and say that they did a bad job, and we can sit here and hear them say that we did a bad job, but at the end of the day the question is whether they will support this bill. If they do not support the bill, then please come out with a figure—just a ballpark figure—of how much the spend—

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: You did say bald park.

The bald park? No, the ballpark figure of how much the spend would be under a Labour Government. Everybody goes quiet. At the end of the day—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: It’s a case of priorities.

I have to say that if I was an alien and had come down to Earth and listened to the speech of the Hon Phil Goff, I would think that with the great job they did, they would be in Government. But it is not case. [Interruption] Exactly. I would like to repeat the words of the Hon Phil Goff, but I cannot. But that stuff does happen.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: It’s an old hippy saying.

I always thought it was—no. I have to say that we are the Government, we took this process through under the Hon Wayne Mapp and now under my colleague the Hon Jonathan Coleman, and it is about to get another airing in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, so save your ammunition for then, and make it count. Kia ora.

I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on this Defence Amendment Bill. We also are in agreement with all the other members in this House that New Zealand’s Defence Force has a very proud tradition of serving to protect our people, our borders, our values, and our sovereignty of New Zealand. Our defence objectives are best achieved through a combination of factors, however; it is not just about defence. It is also about trade, it is also about diplomacy, it is also about economic and technical aid, it is also about continuing to support the United Nations, and it is also about supporting our peacekeeping and peacemaking operations around the world.

As we all know, New Zealand is very much a maritime nation. In fact, at the Local Government and Environment Committee at the moment, where we are considering the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill, we have been advised that we have the fifth-largest economic zone—out to the 200-mile limit—in the world. It is huge by any standard of any nation, and therefore New Zealand is very much dependent on, and must take notice of, the fact that our maritime capabilities must be there. Indeed, our maritime capabilities must also extend to assist our South Pacific neighbours and friends, who perhaps do not all have sufficient capabilities to monitor some of their own areas of the Pacific as well.

New Zealand First itself, of course, is committed to building and maintaining a professional and effective Defence Force, and we always will be. We believe in a strong Defence Force, and we believe in a strong army, navy, and air force. For our size of only 4.5 million people, I think—and our party certainly feels—that we do very well and we punch above our weight. However, we could do better, and there are aspects of this bill that we do support. We do agree with certain sections of it, such as being able to merge some of the operations and find economies of scale across the navy, army, and air force through cooperation between the various arms of our Defence Force, and bringing some of those under one umbrella to find economies of scale.

However, this is not just about finding economics in our military. This is very much, perhaps, a Dad’s Army bill in disguise. We see this as very much, again, the National Party wishing to privatise parts of our military. This is very much along the lines of National tactics in other areas, such as our prisons, wishing to privatise aspects of our prisons; charter schools, with the ACT Party and National wishing to privatise parts of our education; and wishing through the Auckland Council to privatise many aspects of local government. This is just another part of the whole web of intrigue from the National Government: now trying to privatise parts of our military. Indeed, it flows on very closely to the privatisation of our assets such as our power companies and Air New Zealand. It is just a continuous broken record of privatisation by the National Government of much of our heritage and much of what this country stands for.

This bill also undermines our Territorial Force. Good people throughout New Zealand working in communities all over New Zealand spend time in the Territorial Force. Very important people give of their time to also make huge contributions when they are posted in overseas theatres of war, and in peacekeeping efforts, and also at home in emergencies such as the Christchurch earthquake, national disasters—and I am not talking about the National Party; I am talking about national disasters—and civil defence emergencies. This bill goes as low as also wanting to scrap 17 Territorial bands around New Zealand, leaving only three regular force bands for all the important occasions that New Zealand is so proud of. Many communities in New Zealand on Anzac Day next year will struggle to have a presence of a Territorial band at important ceremonies that they are undertaking, or, indeed, throughout the year marking other important commemorations.

This will also have a flow-on effect—this white paper and this defence bill—in terms of jobs. This Government keeps talking about creating more jobs and more employment. We must always remember that our military provides a huge amount of employment in this country. It is the basis of many of our apprenticeships, of training, and of getting young New Zealanders into a service and into a career, giving them a leg-up, getting them into the services, and giving them an opportunity for a job in life. Many of them learn their trades in the military then go on out into the community once they leave the forces to be very, very useful people with good trades training, good skills training, or good information technology, communications, and other training from the military.

This Defence Amendment Bill very much is a Dad’s Army bill. It is no wonder that Stratfor political analysts in the USA just a few days ago made the following comments: “When it comes to geopolitical importance, it doesn’t get much … lower than New Zealand. I mean, they barely have an air force …”; “What possible strategic use is that little part of the world to … anyone??!!”. This is from stratfor.com, which is widely listened to by very, very significant and important people in the United States and internationally. Those are the sorts of comments that were leaked on WikiLeaks about New Zealand. Imagine what the comments will be once we further cut our military and turn it into a privatised Dad’s Army. Imagine the future comments from the likes of stratfor.com.

New Zealand First opposes this Defence Amendment Bill in its present form. It undermines our longstanding proud history of military service in this sovereign nation of ours. Many aspects of this bill will be offensive to our serving personnel, will be offensive to our veterans, and will be offensive to those who have given of their lives for this country. I look on the wall once again to my left, at the Viet Nam crest on the wall, and I wonder what my brother would be thinking today, had he survived the Viet Nam War and not been killed in action on behalf of this country. What would he be thinking today at the privatisation of many aspects of our army, navy, and air force? I think people like my brother, who have served this country and died for this country, and many others whose names the Minister mentioned before, would similarly be aghast to see that we are turning New Zealand very much into a Dad’s Army, and a privatised Defence Force in many respects, which again will be for the benefit of those who support the National Government and can get the private contracts. New Zealand First does not support this, but we do support the ongoing strength of our military in this country.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this Defence Amendment Bill. Like the Hon Jonathan Coleman and the Hon Phil Goff, I too pay tribute to the members of the Defence Force both past and present who have served New Zealand so extraordinarily well, to the extent of being prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.

I also want to pay tribute to the work of the Hon Wayne Mapp, who has ushered through the white paper that is very much behind the genesis of this bill and an incredibly thorough process of consultation. It concerns one when you hear New Zealand First speaking in such an absolutely uninformed way about the future of our armed forces, when this white paper was put out for consultation right throughout New Zealand. Some of the finest minds in this area contributed to it, resulting in this comprehensive statement of the Government’s defence objectives, priorities, strategies, capability, and funding for the next 20 years.

It was a little rich to hear the Hon Phil Goff saying that this bill was all about cuts. This was the leader of the Labour Party who campaigned about spending more, borrowing more, and taxing more, and what actually happened? He cut his own party from 49 seats to 34 seats—an absolutely incredible result. It was totally rich to hear this former Leader of the Opposition suggesting that that was the element of this bill. Not for one moment did he deny that he was supporting it. I think almost certainly he will be supporting the bill.

This bill is, indeed, about the National-led Government committing itself to making sure that New Zealand has a strong and effective Defence Force, and strengthening the one-force approach of the modern Defence Force. The one-force approach is a key to ensuring that the three services work more effectively together, as is required by the increasing sophistication of military operations. Far from it being a bill about cutting, it is a bill that has been very carefully considered. I look forward to it being debated rigorously in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, and I commend it to the House.

Like members who have spoken in the debate before me, I would like to pay tribute to our Defence Force personnel who serve us so magnificently and represent us so well overseas in places like Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste, and all around the world under UN-mandated missions and other missions. There is no doubt that our defence forces are highly regarded and highly respected, and that that regard and respect reflect on New Zealand as a nation. I would like to pay particular tribute briefly to Flying Officer Dan Gregory, Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Corporal Ben Carson, Corporal Doug Grant, Lance Corporal Leon Smith, and Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell and their families—those men all being lost to us in the last couple of years whilst serving in operations and carrying out tasks asked of them by their superiors and by the Government.

I think it is important that parliamentarians and Government Ministers always acknowledge that we send our Defence Force personnel into harm’s way to do tasks that we ask of them, and it is in that spirit that I want to talk about the Defence Amendment Bill. We are seeing quite a lot of dissatisfaction within the defence forces about what is happening under this National Government. In fact, I think the Minister of Defence, Jonathan Coleman, is probably looking for some good news, because the news has all been bad. The news has been about the lowest recorded morale within the defence forces since we started measuring morale—the lowest ebb ever has occurred under the watch of this Minister, Jonathan Coleman.

We also know that the defence forces are struggling to meet the expectations set upon them by this Government to find $350 million to $400 million worth of, we will call them savings but some might call them cuts, in order to meet the expectations that this Government has put upon them. Really, the truth, if we read the briefing to the incoming Minister, is that the Defence Force—try as it might—is an awfully long way away from meeting those expectations. We have to ask whether we are going down the same path that we saw when National was in Government during the 1990s, when our military forces were completely underfunded and under-resourced, their equipment was not kept up to date, and they found themselves in real strife when deployed overseas and unable, literally, to keep up with our allies.

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: Is the member supporting the bill? Is the member supporting the bill?

So I have no doubt that this Minister is looking forward to some good news, and I have some good news for the Minister, Dr Hutchison. That good news is that Labour will support this bill to the select committee. We do want to hear the debate, we want to hear what people have to say about this bill, and we do want to hear some of the issues—

💬 Dr Paul Hutchison: I don’t think Mr Goff is.

Absolutely, Dr Hutchison. Mr Goff is in support of this, but Mr Goff absolutely rightly was pointing out the lacklustre leadership that we have seen from the National Party in the defence portfolio. You may not have—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!

Dr Hutchison may not—my apologies, Mr Assistant Speaker—have picked up on that in Mr Goff’s speech, but I can assure you, he is in support of seeing this bill go to select committee. We reserve our position after then because we want to hear the issues debated. We want to have the conversation—we want to have the conversation.

Essentially, this bill facilitates a number of things that have fallen out of the white paper and the value-for-money review exercise. I think it is important to point out that of all the initiatives that have been put in place following that value-for-money exercise, not one of those initiatives has actually realised the savings that were anticipated in that value-for-money exercise. It always comes up short, and that is why the Defence Force is struggling so much to meet those very extreme expectations that were placed upon them.

I would like to touch on some of the main components of this bill, and perhaps raise some of the issues that we would like to see debated at select committee. Firstly, it is true that this bill vests an awful lot of responsibility and power in the Chief of Defence Force. A lot of responsibility that has been shared across a number of positions—the chiefs of the different services, who jointly advise the Minister currently—is being concentrated in one person: the Chief of Defence Force. So we absolutely want to know that you have got that appointment right, and we want to know that there are some checks and balances to ensure that that power is appropriately concentrated in the Chief of Defence Force. Under this legislation the Chief of Defence Force will now have the authority to appoint the chiefs of the army, the navy, and the air force, whereas previously that was a role that the Government had. Now, the Chief of Defence Force will have that role.

The chiefs of services themselves lose their responsibility and the ability to advise the Minister. The sole adviser in that Defence Force management team is, again, the Chief of Defence Force, so, again, there is a lot of concentration of the responsibility in the Chief of Defence Force. As has rightly been pointed out, for the purpose of seeing more direct leadership of joint forces, the Chief of Defence Force will now command the armed forces directly rather than through the service chiefs. There is considerable concentration of authority and responsibility in the Chief of Defence Force in those changes, and we would like to hear some of the discussion around what possible issues may arise from that.

As I pointed out, currently the various chiefs of the three services as well as the Chief of Defence Force have a responsibility for advising the Minister, and the head of each service has the responsibility for advising the Minister about matters relating to that service. That will no longer be the case, and that group of advisers is going to be replaced by a Defence Advisory Board, which will be appointed by the Minister himself. Again, here we have some question marks. Who will be appointed to that board? What will be the qualifications for being appointed to that board? What is the mechanism for doing so?

I suppose there are some questions. Will the construction of this advisory board be a mechanism for future cuts, for further cuts, and for greater influence from outside the Defence Force to perhaps bring in a private sector view on the Defence Force, a privatisation agenda into the Defence Force? Indeed, I note that it is set out in the bill how these people are to be remunerated. One hopes that we will not see more political appointments like the types that we have seen in New Zealand On Air on the Defence Advisory Board. Again there is an issue there that we are interested in seeing borne out.

As to the Territorials and reserve forces, the Territorials will cease to exist. Instead of having Territorials and reserve forces, what is now proposed in this legislation is active reserves and inactive reserves. Are those active reserves going to be used to replace regular force personnel? That is a very important question that we want to hear borne out and discussed in greater detail. And what will be the role of those inactive reserves? We have great concerns on this side of the House that full-time regular force personnel will have their role replaced by these so-called active reservists. How many reserves will there be? We have heard about how the Government plans to cut the number of Territorials, but then it wants to introduce this reserve force. They seem to be sometimes contradicting their own views, so we do want to hear more.

I can see that my time is coming to an end. I just want to say finally that on the issue of civilianisation we are very happy to see that members of the armed forces, if they are civilianised, will be able to be moved directly into the Civil Service. That should have happened over a year ago before the civilianisation process began. On that, we are happy to support this bill going to a select committee and we look forward to those issues being explored further.

It is a shame that the Opposition—although it is wonderful that it is supporting the Defence Amendment Bill—seems to be bogged down in the minutiae of the bill about, you know, the officers, yet—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: Just ignore the detail!

Gosh, they are very excitable tonight, are they not. What is it? The Opposition is terribly excitable tonight. I think it is because those members have been caught out. I think that they have been caught out focusing on the tiny little itty-bitty details that, indeed, will be very important in the select committee consideration of this bill, but actually what is important in a first reading speech is, what does the bill mean for the Defence Force in New Zealand? I mean, that is what we should be talking about in the first reading speech. What is it that we want our Defence Force to be doing for us on behalf of New Zealand? What are our responsibilities that our Defence Force should be looking at, and how is it that the New Zealand Parliament, through the most excellent Minister of Defence, Jonathan Coleman, can support it in doing that? Those are the questions that we should be asking in this first reading speech.

I think the questions laid out in this bill indeed are worth asking. There is the fact that it has taken 3 years for the consultation on this white paper, which was initiated by the Hon Wayne Mapp; there has been a white paper consideration of what does our Defence Force need to deliver. Do we need to refocus our efforts into the South Pacific? What are our responsibilities? In a budget-constrained environment how best do we deliver those services?

So, you see, this bill looks outwards. This bill looks at how our New Zealand Defence Force can be focused not only on delivering on behalf of the Defence Force itself but also on delivering to us as New Zealanders and out into the wider Pacific and further on out in the world on behalf of us. The moment we start focusing on that then we will start having a good debate. Thank you.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call between Labour and the Greens.

I, like many speakers in this debate, would like to begin by paying tribute to the men and women who serve in our Defence Force. I am sure that despite the passionate debate from around the House tonight, all of us as a collective have much respect for our navy, air force, and army. Our Defence Force personnel, when they are acting on our behalf both at home and abroad, very much exceed the expectations from some of our allies, especially when they are overseas.

I am a bit disappointed that this is only a 5-minute call, because after the last contribution from the National Party about the fact that we should just throw this thing away and not worry about the details of it, I really am aghast. And to claim that on this side of the House we have been caught out and we are getting stuck in the weave and the detail of the Defence Amendment Bill really will wake people at home at quarter to 9.

It is not us who have been caught out when we are debating the Defence Amendment Bill; it is actually the Government. Although it is looking at what we call “capability management”, I think it is actually capability mismanagement. What is this bill about? I will answer the question of the member for Otago, Jacqui Dean—

💬 Michael Woodhouse: Waitaki.

I am sorry, the member for Waitaki—my apologies. I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Simon O’Connor: Details, details.

We do not want to get caught in the details! For the member for Waitaki, what does this bill do? In the explanatory note it says that capability management, which is one of the things this bill sets out to achieve, is “changing the way in which the Secretary of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force will work together regarding the procurement, replacement, repair, and disposal of defence assets:”. The best-case scenario on that side of the House may be to spin that as efficiencies or savings, but as many speakers on this side of the House have said, this is not about efficiencies and savings; this is purely about cuts, cuts, and more cuts. As we have heard—again, getting stuck in the detail—the Defence Force has been asked to find $350 million of efficiencies annually, of savings annually, or of cuts annually to make sure it can meet the targets that have been set by this Government. No one is safe in the Defence Force. Not even our proud members of the Defence Force bands are safe, as we have heard time and time again from a number of speakers. Seven of the 10 bands that play for us at a number of public occasions are set for the chop, saving the taxpayer the whopping amount of $900,000!

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: That’s about the price of a swimming pool, isn’t it?

It is roughly about the price of a swimming pool in Tokyo. I go back to the figure of $350 million a year of savings, because it is also roughly about the size of the reported efficiencies that the police are supposed to be looking for in the latest reports of a proposal that is before the Government at the moment. That will seriously affect the police. The changes that we are looking at here will seriously affect the front-line capabilities of the Defence Force.

Cuts, cuts, and more cuts, and what will this do to the credibility and the reputation of our Defence Force staff? I spoke earlier in my contribution about the high regard in which they are held. If we are going to look seriously at major cuts to the Defence Force budget, our ability to act in the way that we have and our proud reputation overseas will be seriously, seriously affected. As my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has said, the cuts that are happening already in the Defence Force are starting to have a serious effect on morale within our troops—excuse the pun. The New Zealand Defence Force outgoing attitude survey completed last year showed that our Defence Force morale has fallen to its lowest point in 8 years, and that the number of people wanting to leave the military is higher than it was 2 years ago.

That leads me to the point of how we attract our young Kiwis to serve in the Defence Force at a time of pretty high unemployment. You know, you think that the Defence Force might be a career option for many of our youngsters who cannot find work or training; I think there are 64,000 of them at the moment—a very large number. At the moment you would think that the Defence Force might be one of the ways that they could do something meaningful, but when you are making cuts of this nature it is not going to be very easy to attract younger people to the Defence Force.

We will be recommending that this bill goes to a select committee. There are a number of issues that we have pointed out that are worthy of debate, worthy of seeing what the public has said, and we commend this bill to the next stage.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to share the practice in this House of acknowledging our troops in and out of uniform. I would like to acknowledge the families and loved ones of those Kiwis who have died overseas in service. As you look around the room you see reminders of the places where Kiwis have served with distinction over the decades.

I am very happy to take a call on the Defence Amendment Bill, because I come from a naval family. Mum and dad met in the New Zealand Navy. Despite what they probably wanted I went off and joined the hippy navy, sailing on the Rainbow Warrior. In fact, my first touch of the Defence Force was actually being assaulted on the network news, when the Labour Government got rid of the Skyhawks and I went to protest about the ditching of the Skyhawks. That was a tough decision that Labour took. It was under a lot of pressure, and we should be learning the lessons, because what we need in 2012 is an independent defence force fit for purpose. Our fear in the Green Party and throughout New Zealand is that our defence forces are not fit for purpose; they are fit to be a key cog in the United States and other Western military processes.

When we look around this room and at reminders of those Kiwis who have lost their lives, we want to make sure they are doing it in the interests of justice internationally and in the interests of democracy. The Green Party approach to this issue is that we support an independent foreign policy. We support a non-violent, diplomatic approach to conflict. We do not want to be tied into those old alliances of the past. We do not want to be going into illegal wars, such as Iraq. We do not want to be going into illegal wars like Iraq under false pretences, like we see in New Zealand and saw in Nicky Hager’s book Other People’s Wars.

This bill, the Defence Amendment Bill, makes a number of smaller changes, looking at the increased collaboration between the New Zealand Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence. It gives the Chief of Defence Force more authority to directly manage the navy, army, and air force. We believe that the bill is, in fact, a step towards the reintegration of the New Zealand Defence Force and the Ministry of Defence, as recommended in the Hunn report, reversing this process we have seen in the last two decades—the separation of civilian and military systems.

This bill is about cuts. This bill is about increasing civilianisation and changes to the Territorial Force. We have seen, over the last term and a half, this Government’s economic plan. We know the plan. We have seen the “drill it” part of it; we have seen the “mine it” part of it; we are seeing the “sell it” part of it right now; and, here we are, graphic evidence of the “cut it” part of it. This bill is going to see cuts in the order of $400 million a year from the defence forces, we are going to be cutting the Territorials by a third, we are cutting seven out of 10 military bands, and we are seeing hundreds and hundreds of uniform jobs going to civilians.

This bill is about cuts, to go with the “drill it”, “mine it”, cut it”, and “sell it”. It comes from the white paper—the Hunn report from 2002. The white paper looked at our strategic environment and looked at threats over the next 25 years. It said it is going to be a more challenging strategic environment over the next 25 years, and highlighted threats such as the fragility of the Pacific and terrorism as a continuing threat. It also highlighted a particular threat to us down at the bottom of the world in the South Pacific: illegal migration.

A point missing from the defence report, the Hunn report, of course, was the role of climate change. We are likely to see literally hundreds of millions of climate refugees from those delta regions from around the world, and the way our defence forces are set up, they are not fit for purpose. We have got these floating white elephants, these more than $600 million worth—I wonder what the cost is now—of frigates. It costs $400 million a year to run these two frigates. So while we are looking at cuts, let us look at more appropriate ways we could be saving the New Zealand taxpayer money. What we would rather see is cuts to those frigates, those floating white elephants, not to the military bands, and not increasing civilianisation. We have got $600 million for new air defences, the frigates, and the $900 million for new helicopters. If we had an independent foreign policy, if we were trying to design our defence forces to be fit for purpose, we would be making different decisions.

It is disappointing to see Labour supporting this bill, because the Greens will be opposing it. We are going to take a constructive approach in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, but, ultimately, all in all, what we want to see is a promotion of independence from New Zealand. What we see, and this is in the white paper, is that this bill is all about being a stalwart ally of the United States, as outlined so blatantly in the Hunn report. Kia ora.

There has been a significant contribution from this side of the House, so I am not going to say anything further but to commend the Minister of Defence, Dr Jonathan Coleman, for this fantastic piece of legislation, the Defence Amendment Bill. I support it in its first reading.