Editorial: Our military can’t keep muddling along

NZDF personnel deliver supplies to an isolated community in Hastings after Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023.

EDITORIAL

The world is as volatile as it has been for decades. But our military is not in a fit state to respond.

On Wednesday, the Herald reported that severe shortages of uniformed personnel and other problems have curtailed the NZ Defence Force’s ability to keep ships at sea, aircraft in the air, and boots on the ground.

The deficiencies highlighted in our reporting (which was based on ministerial briefings and other documents obtained under the Official Information Act) are serious and pressing. And they demand a response of greater ambition and clarity than anything the key players in the new National-led coalition – principally Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Defence Minister Judith Collins – have said publicly on the subject to date.

In August, the previous Labour government published a defence policy paper that envisaged a modernised NZDF serving three main roles: Maintaining security at home and across the Pacific region; contributing to international security missions alongside our allies; and providing emergency relief during natural disasters and other emergencies (as it did in the aftermath of Cyclone Gabrielle).

Achieving this would require a force that is highly skilled, diverse and nimble. However, as the documents obtained by the Herald illustrate, the NZDF as it stands is vastly short of being equipped to perform this multifaceted function.

This crisis has been a long time in the making, predating the last government and the Covid-19 pandemic, and it will not be easy to resolve. Ministers and officials took some measures to improve conditions in the final months of Chris Hipkins’ administration, but sustained investment and attention will be required for a decade or more. As an indication of how much, consider that NZ spends about 1 per cent of GDP on defence - only half the level of some of its allies.

So far, National has given little indication that it intends to make defence a priority in this parliamentary term.

During the election campaign, Luxon, in keeping with his background as a corporate leader, talked mainly about defence and foreign policy in trade and business terms and seemed to show no inclination to radically depart from previous governments. When his new government published its coalition agreements with Act and NZ First and its 100-day plan, they did not even mention NZDF.

Since then, Luxon has held talks with Australian leader Anthony Albanese that were partly focused on regional security and key members of his administration, Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters, have made public statements that indicated this government could take a more hawkish approach on defence than their predecessors. But now we need a clear long-term plan to equip NZDF for the future.

The challenge, of course, will be how any increased investments are funded when the new government has promised to curtail spending, borrowing and taxes. Ministers will have virtually no fiscal room to move in the next three years. Yet the government’s appetite for austerity may not hold.

Difficult decisions are looming on expensive military commitments including the replacement of most of NZ’s naval fleet. The release of a full defence policy review later this year will bring those issues into sharp relief. And external events will continue to demonstrate starkly the need for a resilient, well-resourced modern defence force.

NZ can’t continue to let its military muddle along as it has been. The world is not about to suddenly get any safer.