I suppose that depends on how the 'diplomacy' is spent, I'm sure you as are many fellow kiwis here aware of the billion dollars Labour is spending on Pacific aid? With the corruption and misappropriation of funds to some of these islands by officials there I'd say it's far better spent on military aid, ships ect. At least treasury would more accurately be able to track what coin is spent, and where.
I'm going to respectfully disagree with everyone else on this thread. Explanation below.
Firstly, I agree the military has a significant role to play in responding to natural disasters. They are well-suited to putting significant amounts of trained capability on the ground promptly, and deploying into areas where they have to be largely self-sustaining. NZDF already do this well and could do it even better if their logistics capability (e.g. air and sea-lift) were improved.
For training exercises, there can be benefits in deploying defence forces into aid-type situations. It gives the staff experience working outside their comfort zone, and presumably benefits the handful of people that are treated (assuming, for example, it is a medical team). However, this is a woefully ineffective way to deliver primary health care (or bridge-building, road construction etc).
Take the recent NZDF dental mission to Samoa. It ran for about a week in a village an hour from the capital - presumably chosen for access reasons and its very kiwi-friendly council of chiefs (I used to drive through it regularly, and every second house/shack/fale and outhouse boasted an All Blacks flag). I'm sure the people of the village with dodgy teeth benefited. Unfortunately, Samoa has round 250 villages, so it would take five years of continuous deployment to get round all of them at that rate. Apart from the direct cost of the NZ personnel deployed, there will be a large and expensive back-office operation that organised the visit, got the team into the field, and supported them while they were there.
The same amount of money would pay for a lot more dental treatment if funneled into the local health system. Or via civil society groups - the Mormons run a very good dental service using semi-retired dentists from Utah (local joke - the Vaimoso dental clinic is the only place in the world where unbelievers knock on the door of the Mormons, rather than the other way around). So while using the NZ military to deliver health services looks good and generates newspaper coverage, it's wildly inefficient. This is something Australia is about to find out, if they follow though with their proposed Pacific support ship.
If we wanted to minimise corruption and misuse of funds, we'd give all our aid money to Sweden or Norway. (Or, ahem, Canada!). Unfortunately, the countries that could most effectively manage the money don't need it. Pretty much by definition, developing countries have weak governance and financial controls. However, it is possible to reduce this a lot by careful management. For instance, the Tokelau helicopter purchase mentioned above came from their own fishing license revenue, as the dodgy officials involved knew they'd be sprung instantly if they tried to use NZ aid funding. Notwithstanding this, undoubtedly some money will always go astray - it comes with the territory.
If NZ wants to maintain our level of influence in the south Pacific, we will have to spend more. But it is important to use the military for the things they are good at, and not try to push them into areas better served by other means.
I could go on at length, but I hope you get my point.
