It indicates their priorities, defence has the same allocation as for heritage, culture and recreation.
NZDF General discussion thread
- Thread starter NZLAV
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John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Sounds like some political parties here in Canada.
NZDF support for the "Auckland Airport Fuel Crisis" (a pipeline to Auckland and Auckland Airport from the country's only refinery was damaged and will not be functional for another 10 days)
HMNZS Endevour gets to move fuel around the country - a nice way to tour the country in her final year; Wonder if this makes anyone think that maybe not having a tanker available for so long is not the greatest idea.
HMNZS Endevour gets to move fuel around the country - a nice way to tour the country in her final year; Wonder if this makes anyone think that maybe not having a tanker available for so long is not the greatest idea.
Is this the F-16s currently here? IF so, just a little a bit embarrassing while trying to get a longer term arrangement.
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Can you please edit the above post to include the source of the quote. This protects both you and the forum from allegations of plagiarism.
It is more of a general Foreign Affairs policy - but does give its tone.
Maintain and strengthen our traditional alliances, while leading the world with our relationships in Asia. Alliances, such as the Five Eyes and the Commonwealth are more important than ever and ACT will continue to support these alliances.
On the $20B allocated under the DWP16 leader David Seymour was quoted by RNZ.
The ACT leader David Seymour believes it would be money well spent because defending New Zealand was something the Government had to do.
He said the White Paper indicated the defence force would be modernised and the threats were different.
Couldn't agree more. What really needs to happen, IMHO, is that the Endeavour should be put into reserve (at Devonport), until the replacement vessel is fully commissioned in 2021. I would envisage that something similar to what the Americans do with the Military Sealift Command's Ready Reserve Force (RRF) is the proper course of action - whereby older vessels are maintained by a small crew (usually about 9 personnel) at a certain number of days reactivation time (usually 5).
The problem is that current policy, such as the Capital Charge, militates against such a wise course of action. An unused asset is viewed as just a financial liability that needs to be disposed of as soon as possible.
Ideally for me, we would use the RRF model for certain rarely-used but very useful vessels that we should add to our fleet. For example, an old-school break-bulk freighter, crewed by the Auckland branch of the Naval Reserve (in-lieu of not having enough local civilian mariners to crew it at short notice). A modernised version of the upgraded Cape-J Mariner class freighters (C4-S-1) with the modular STREAM solid stores transfer system (MCDS) and the heli-deck would be perfect (might need to be diesel rather than steam and slightly smaller to fit in Calliope dry dock). If it could carry some form of lighterage (Mexeflote or the latest USN lighterage system) all the better. To me such a ship is necessary to provide serious sealift logistics to the army in the South Pacific, given the limitations of the new tanker (ie being another AO rather than an AOR). Let the Naval Reserve crew it (gives them a real mission), and exercise it every other year.
Speaking of Calliope dry-dock, and crumbling critical national infrastructure - has there been any thought to widening it? As it stands, the larger Cook Strait ferries, the HMNZS Canterbury and the new tanker (HMNZS Aotearoa) will be too wide for it.
The capital charge is insane. It's logical when applied to cash, or assets with a good market value (e.g. prime pieces of land, which our military used to hang on to without much justification, sometimes not using them at all), but it's crazy for things like naval ships where the sale price & cost of ownership are small in relation to the utility.
Agree, it's economic management theory being used where it simply shouldn't. Under that model all the defence force personnel should also have a capital charge as they to are unable to be used to enhance the GDP.
If that model is used it also follows that the government must also insure all,its military "capital", ships, aircraft, vehicles etc at commercial rates instead of simply self insuring......madness
Back in the 1990's a treasury report on the government accounting system said that the system was not a good fit for defence, but they still went with it. It shows up how good it is when no one else in the world uses the system for defence, so we are in a minority of one out of about 200 countries, must tell you something,
my guess is the only chance that NZ will get a decent sized drydock is if the Naval Base of moved to Whangarei, a new dock would have to be built.
40 deg south
Well-Known Member
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/96705169/picton-pegged-for-nzs-largest-dry-dock
Not necessarily.
There is a proposal to build a new dry dock in the Marlborough Sounds - looks as if Navy is part of the group looking at it.
The UK has capital charges in its defence accounting. That leads to bizarre actions like spending money to cut up tanks so that the army isn't charged for owning them.
And in NZ to sticking low life Macchi's on poles and in museums, when there is probably 20 years life left in the airframe.
Shanesworld
Well-Known Member
My understanding was that when defence spending was 1.0-1.1% gdp that the capital charge resulted in a real defence spend of.0.7% (perhaps mentioned here?).
Defence spend now being 1.5ish % are we still loosing the same amount or a similar proportion?
NZ Election Outcome
Well the voters have spoken and now we wait to see who manages to stitch up a coalition deal with Winston (NZ First). It would be advantageous for Defence if he goes with National because his party has developed, over time, a favourable defence policy. However if he goes with a Labour Greens coalition then the outlook for Defence is not so bright.
For non Kiwis, a period of negotiations between NZ First and the two major parties will now occur to see who forms the next govt. In 1996 Winston dragged it out for 2 months, because then, like now,he was / is in the box seat. However tonight he said that he wants it done by the time the writs are returned, which is 12 October 2017.
Well the voters have spoken and now we wait to see who manages to stitch up a coalition deal with Winston (NZ First). It would be advantageous for Defence if he goes with National because his party has developed, over time, a favourable defence policy. However if he goes with a Labour Greens coalition then the outlook for Defence is not so bright.
For non Kiwis, a period of negotiations between NZ First and the two major parties will now occur to see who forms the next govt. In 1996 Winston dragged it out for 2 months, because then, like now,he was / is in the box seat. However tonight he said that he wants it done by the time the writs are returned, which is 12 October 2017.
Defence and law and order are certainly areas where there are quick wins.
Winston will very likely go with National.
Agreed, but even if he goes with the left i think that with his strong defence policy and his more dominant position this time, that the status quo would at least be maintained.
Shanesworld
Well-Known Member
Fiscally different environment to back then but Winston has a track record of talking big on defence then scuttling major projects. Frigates, HUMVEES, I think f-16's. Probably better examples than those but I'll wait and see if he delivers
Todjaeger
Potstirrer
I was likely either the source for those numbers, or at least involved in posting them on DT. Probably earlier in this thread and/or some of the older Kiwi defence threads.
From memory, when I looked over the Vote Defence annual budget, the stated amount was ~1% GDP. When I went over it in detail, I noticed that the amount spent on defence, not including the Capital Charge and GST was ~67% of the total amount in the Vote Defence budget. Basically it looked as though a bit of accounting slight of hand was being used to make the NZDF budget appear larger than it really was/is.
As for how things stand now, I would need to site down with the budgets and budget estimates again and go through them in detail. Absent having done that though, I would consider it likely that a significant portion of the stated defence budget is still not actually being spend in real terms. I would not be surprised to find that a claimed NZDF budget of 1.5% GDP was still only 1.0% GDP or less, in real terms.