{"id":10818,"date":"2013-11-18T14:45:19","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T03:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=10818"},"modified":"2013-11-20T09:20:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T22:20:23","slug":"an-injection-of-funds-for-the-nzdf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/an-injection-of-funds-for-the-nzdf\/","title":{"rendered":"An injection of funds for the NZDF?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"New<\/a>One thing New Zealand is never accused of internationally is throwing too much money around on defence. Those impressions aren\u2019t about to be challenged any time soon, but Defence Minister Jonathan\u2019s Coleman\u2019s recent speech<\/a> to an annual industry conference indicates that a bit more spending may be on the way.<\/p>\n

Since the publication of the government\u2019s 2010 Defence White Paper<\/a> (PDF), the New Zealand Defence Force has been embarked on a quest to release up to NZ$400mn (A$350mn) in annual efficiencies by 2014\/15, which can then be redirected to \u2018front office\u2019 activities. Most of these savings had been identified in a piece of creative writing known as the Value for Money Review<\/a> (PDF). A big part of the aim was to allow financial room for upgrade (and ultimately replacement) of the three big ticket items\u2014the two Anzac frigates, the Hercules strategic lift aircraft and the long-range maritime patrol Orion aircraft\u2014without the government having to dig deeper into its pockets.<\/p>\n

Some of these efficiencies have come at a real price. Not a huge proportion of savings was to come from the civilianisation of many \u2018back office\u2019 military positions, but this morale-sapping element has generated almost all of the publicity. Earlier this year, the Auditor General concluded drily<\/a> that the \u2018NZDF should have found out how many and what kind of military staff it would need before telling the Government that it would convert 1,400 military positions into civilian positions.\u2019<\/p>\n

Dr Coleman\u2019s speech appears to reflect a desire to put a line underneath this less than happy phase. \u2018Even with the full delivery of the NZDF Savings and Redistribution programme\u2019, he said to his audience in Wellington, \u2018we always knew that new money would still be required to deliver on policy intent\u2019. If the Cabinet always knew that, it wasn\u2019t really what they were saying at the time. But rather than dwell on that still rather recent past, the Minister\u2019s focus is now clearly on something called the Defence Mid-point Rebalancing Review\u2019 (DMRR), an interagency process (including those generous people from the Treasury) out of which the \u2018Government has committed to a sustainable long term funding approach for the NZDF out to 2030\u2019.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve heard those nice phrases before on both sides of the Tasman Sea. But I reckon John Key\u2019s Government feels that it has wrung about nearly all the efficiencies it can reasonably expect from the NZDF\u2014perhaps nearly half of what was initially promised. In terms of how much extra funding will now be injected, Dr Coleman offered few hints. But he specifically noted that DMRR will allow New Zealand to maintain \u2018credible combat capabilities, such as the Naval Combat Force\u2019. That’s of course code for the frigates, which were always the most vulnerable of the big three. If the government really wants to give its successors a good chance to replace them (with frigates or even something smaller), along with maintaining the other kit already coming into service, it will need to write what for New Zealand is a fairly big new cheque for defence. The historical record would suggest this is a rather rare occurrence.<\/p>\n

Robert Ayson is on research leave from Victoria University of Wellington at the ANU\u2019s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing New Zealand is never accused of internationally is throwing too much money around on defence. Those impressions aren\u2019t about to be challenged any time soon, but Defence Minister Jonathan\u2019s Coleman\u2019s recent speech to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":10819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[73,369],"class_list":["post-10818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-new-zealand","tag-nzdf"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAn injection of funds for the NZDF? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/an-injection-of-funds-for-the-nzdf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An injection of funds for the NZDF? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One thing New Zealand is never accused of internationally is throwing too much money around on defence. 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