Estimates Debate — Vote Defence Force

Eight months ago the Cabinet external relations and defence committee produced this minute that I have got in my hands. It had been kept secret and confidential until such time as the Government was forced to reveal it under the Official Information Act. Why was it kept secret? Because it reveals this point: “New Zealand now has the smallest number of personnel deployed to international peacekeeping operations in almost 20 years.” The number of New Zealand men and women, who are superb peacekeepers, whom we have deployed today is 77—just 77.

When I was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Minister of Defence it numbered up to 800 and was generally in the 300 to 500 range. This minute, in its last point, urges the Government to take an active approach to considering contributions to international peace support operations. Why? Firstly, it is the right thing to do for New Zealand as a good international citizen. But also, New Zealand is putting itself up to be a candidate for the United Nations Security Council, and what do we say about our good international citizenship—that the best we can mount to help international peacekeeping operations is 77?

I wondered about this. because I know that the Government from this minute wanted to have more people out in the field. So why did it not? Well, the answer was given in the estimates questionnaire where I asked the question about deploying overseas. And do you know what the Minister of Defence tells me? He says there is a risk that you could not deploy New Zealand service personnel overseas in a peacekeeping operation for more than 12 months. For 9 years we had 400 to 500 people deployed on these sorts of peace missions, Minister, and you have run down the Defence Force to the point that we cannot have our very good peacekeepers deployed for more than 1 year. That is a disgrace.

One reason—and this comes out of the Auditor-General’s comments on the Minister’s handling of his portfolio—is that between 2009 and 2013 the number of Regular Force personnel has been slashed by 1,200. That is a 15 percent reduction in our Defence Force personnel. But it is worse than that. It is worse than that, because when that Minister did what the Auditor-General accused him of doing—breaking the social contract with the Defence Force personnel—we reached 24 percent attrition in the Defence Force. It was 24 percent in vital trades and in vital ranks, and it takes years, 7 to 8 years, to replace people with the skills of those who walked away from the Defence Force.

That is why our Defence Force cannot mount a decent peacekeeping operation—because that Minister, by destroying the morale of the Defence Force in 2011-12, and by cutting the Defence Force budget for personnel, has reduced it to the point that it cannot deploy for more than 1 year.

But it is not simply that. There has been botch-up after botch-up. When the Minister of Defence gets to his feet I want him to comment on why the army court martialled a brave Special Air Service soldier, who had served in Bosnia and served three times in Afghanistan, for stealing army equipment when they could not find any equipment missing. They could not find any equipment missing and that has just been overturned—

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. That matter is still before the courts and it is best not to refer to it.

No, it is not.

💬 Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman: It is.

Speaking to the point of order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will hear the Hon Phil Goff.

I was passed the Military Court of Appeal decision from the court by a party to the court because the suppression order has been lifted. It is in the public arena, however much the Minister might try to suppress it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I will need to seek some guidance on this. I do not have the answer and I will ask for some guidance from the Clerk. [Interruption] No, I need to seek some guidance on this matter. I am informed that three of the four charges were dropped, but there is still one that has not been, so on that basis I would ask the member to move on, on the Defence Force, and we will leave that matter as it is.

Speaking to the point of order, the fourth charge was not appealed by the soldier concerned, though the military court of appeal said that the army should consider withdrawing it. But this matter is not live before the court. It is not under a suppression order.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): OK. Well, look, just give me one moment while I just make sure that I have got my advice correct. All right, I have some advice and the advice is that we can continue in the same vein.

Well, I would like the Minister to explain to the Committee why the army court martialled a solider for the theft of equipment that was not missing. The Minister will know that that soldier spent $15,000 of his own money on buying equipment. It may well be that he passed back his own equipment and sold equipment that was the army equipment, but there was no intent of theft, and the military court of appeal damned the judgment that had been made in the first instance.

Do we have so many brave and experienced SAS soldiers that we can court martial them, effectively humiliate them, and drum them out of the military, only to find that the military court in the first instance got it wrong? That was a botch-up.

The second botch-up: why is it that people working full-time for the air force at Whenuapai can set up a private company and tender for the equipment that they are working full-time on? And why is it that that matter is before the Auditor-General? That is another scandal waiting. The third thing is Babcock. Why did Babcock, in its key performance indicators, hit the lowest level, five out of five, which is designated unacceptable, for 6 months? Why is it that the Defence Force is doing so badly that it is having these problems?

Looking to what we have just heard from both the New Zealand First member Richard Prosser and Phil Goff, you would not believe that there has actually been so much great progress in the Defence Force. We are talking about the Appropriation (2014/15 Estimates) Bill here: $535 million over the next 4 years going into Vote Defence Force.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: How much?

It is $535 million. That is something to really celebrate, quite frankly.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: That’s less than I spent on the NH90s, for God’s sake.

I am very disappointed with Phil Goff, because no matter how nice I am to him, I cannot get him to take a bipartisan approach and support our serving men and women. It is very, very sad.

Look, what I can say to him is that he really has been misleading—I would like to say—there around the PKO, the peacekeeping operations paper. He knows that the reason we have got relatively few people out on deployment at the moment is that we have people who have come back from Afghanistan, from East Timor, and from the Solomon Islands. The situation is very different from when he was the Minister. On 8 September 2008 there was a headline in the New Zealand Herald relating to Phil Goff’s tenure as Minister, which said: “Can’t fight, can’t sail, can’t fly”. We have had to turn that round.

What we had in 2010 was the first defence white paper in 13 years. What that did was set the policy for defence. We said: “Look, it’s fiscally pretty constrained times. We’ve got to be very clear about what we need the Defence Force to do. Primarily, it obviously has to maintain the integrity of New Zealand’s borders and be able to operate in our exclusive economic zone. It has to be able to deploy into the south-west Pacific in cases where there may be security emergencies or where there may be humanitarian assistance and disaster relief issues they have to deal with, and it has to be able to make a contribution further afield.” So the policy was set, but what we knew was that there was a funding gap there. We knew what capabilities were needed to deliver on that policy and we followed it up with the release of a capability plan, which we have just refreshed recently, and released just 2 weeks ago. But we had this hole of well over half a billion dollars, which was going to roll up into the 2020s to a massive deficit of money needed to fund the sort of capital equipment that the Defence Force needs.

So we went away and the officials from the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force did an excellent job at looking at all the capabilities that the Defence Force has—about 220 of them. They costed them all. They arranged them into 11 capability sets, to deliver on the policy. At the end of that we had a very clear view of what capabilities were needed for the Defence Force to actually deliver the effects that the Government needs it to. We went to Cabinet and said: “Look, this is the policy, this is the strategy, this is the capability we need and now we need this funding.” As a result of that, in this Budget we have got this over half a billion dollars’ worth over 4 years. That is something that Phil Goff really should be celebrating. He is being disingenuous to say that we cannot deploy a defence force on a continuous rotation. We can; we can do two at once, just like he could when he was Minister. The same problems that have been there around, you know, critical trades sustaining these deployments, have always been there. They were there when Phil Goff was there. The key point is that we are able to sustain these deployments.

As for the New Zealand First member, he wants eight frigates for the navy. What he did not mention was that it was actually his leader, Winston Peters, who cancelled the third frigate. I know he would be very eager to go and attack any country ending in “stan”, but, actually, that is not realistic in the current world. So when you look at it, we have got a situation where we had no new money in defence for many, many years. We had to make the best of what we had at the time. We redeployed resources from the back of the office to the front.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Who paid for the NH90s?

Ah! Phil Goff has mentioned the NH90s—$770 million. He has forgotten, though, that you do not just buy the helicopter; you need to be able to afford to run it and you need to have people to go in it. Phil Goff ignored that completely. He has now left us to carry the slack.

He talks about morale and attrition. Attrition in the Defence Force is now lower than when he was Minister. It is now 11.6 percent. Morale is now at 85 percent. So 85 percent of personnel in the New Zealand Defence Force rate their morale as good or better. I can tell you that that is a damned sight higher than the Labour caucus’ morale.

💬 Hon Phil Goff: No, no, no, not true—satisfactory.

Yes, it absolutely is. That is 85 percent. So, actually, what we have done is turned round a lot of the damage that Phil Goff caused when he was Minister.

But the one thing I really do wish is this. You know, Phil Goff is always welcome to come along to any defence event; I always acknowledge him. But I wish he would just behave the same way in the Chamber as he does at those events.

Vote agreed to.

Vote State Services agreed to.

Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade agreed to.

Vote Official Development Assistance agreed to.

Vote Sport and Recreation agreed to.

Vote Corrections