Why NZSAS and the Defence Force are struggling and what it will take to fix - The Front Page

Payments of up to $30,000 will be offered to experienced personnel to stem NZSAS staff losses.

Ships stuck at docks, around a third of uniformed staff leaving since 2021 and a plane more often infamous for breaking down than its politician cargo.

The New Zealand Defence Force is in crisis.

Evidence of just how dire things have become was laid bare earlier this week when Herald reporter David Fisher revealed special payments of up to $30,000 would be offered to experienced troopers in a bid to stem NZSAS staffing losses.

Fisher told The Front Page podcast people leave because the pay they can get outside of military service is far better.

“They’ve left because the opportunities that the military promised of travel of deployment to some of the world’s hotspots hasn’t really been there over the last handful of years. And they can go do more exciting things in the civilian world, and have somewhat of a family life to go with it.”

He said documents showed some of the staffing issues even impacted roles like plumbers, who were essential for sending personnel offshore.

“They referred to the lack of plumbers in the Army as having strategic implications and that’s because we can’t send people overseas. We can’t send a significant deployment of people overseas without having plumbers to make sure that they’re going to get good drinking water when they get there, to make sure that waste water is able to be disposed of.”

Fisher told the podcast it was “highly unusual” for NZDF to offer its personnel money to stay and it was an illustration of how parlous a state the NZDF was in.

“We do need to look at exactly what our Defence Force is meant to be doing and then to fund it accordingly and unfortunately, given the state that it’s in now, it’s going to need quite a bit of surge funding, I think, to get it back to a point where it can stand on its own two feet.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more from David Fisher on the state of the NZDF and what he thinks it will take to fix the crisis.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. This episode was presented by Katie Harris, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in social issues reporting who joined the Herald in 2020.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.