recce.k1
Well-Known Member
Another concern reported recently is that housing rentals for personnel are increasing significantly, as much as 40% in some cases (presumably these rental increases were locked in a while ago under the previous administration as it was a announced a few weeks ago) as well as new reports on substandard accommodation last week (Newshub). Where Govts can help with personnel retention would be to (obviously) build more replacement housing, previous govt documents released seem to suggest the replacement rates are not high enough (as we discussed here during the May Budget release - they are ridiculously low despite the fanfare. And some seem to be tied to joint Govt/Iwi tribe initiatives - which sounds great in theory but perhaps in practice Defence shouldn't be used as a prototype due to the time it is taking? Maybe give the task to Housing NZ/Kāinga Ora instead)? Another aspect to consider is reducing rental charges, which goes against Govt/Treasury market-led thinking, but clearly the present course is failing big time.NZDF has "lost more than 36 percent of its full time uniformed personnel since April 2021."
Defence personnel crisis 'extremely concerning', says minister
Four key vessels are docked, planes and helicopters are grounded by the loss of one in three trained staff, and NZ may have to ask for help from Australia to deploy troops. Oscar Francis reports.newsroom.co.nz
This is very concerning with the RNZN being described as hollow. This doesn't surprise me because personnel have been voting with their feet because of pay, conditions, and the Covid-19 deployment. Morale is low and the senior leadership being positioned being between a rock and a hard place by the pollies. It is time that both pollies and senior defence leadership realise that they have to look after their people much better than they are currently doing. Historically pollies and senior defence leadership have been quite poor a looking after our defence people. I realise that the ADF, and the other FVEY have recruitment and retention problems, but I think that NZDF is currently the worse off. In fact, NZDF pay and conditions are the poorest of all the FVEY militaries. Another problem is that two of the C-130H Hercules have been retired, leaving us only three. This is because of pollies continued practice of delaying acquisitions. I don't know how the RAN is going to help the TNZN with crewing because the RAN has its own, not insignificant, crew retention problems.
Some of the author's conclusions seem to be a bit hyped up. According to the OIA documents which formed the basis of his article, in May Defence have noticed some improvements:
Also HMNZS Canterbury "generates to be the primary response for the High Risk Weather Season by 1 March 2024" according to the September briefing. So I'm unclear why the author is suggesting it won't be until 2027 before Canterbury is back in service. Perhaps I missed something so happy to be corrected.
. He mentions NZDF interoperability with the ADF and that we can be a force multiplier. This security talk by him is stronger than any NZ govt since the first cold war ended. The talk of NZ & Australia growing closer, what does this mean? In what way will the two nations grow closer? WRT to Luxon's remark about being a force multiplier, what capabilities does he have in mind for this role? What about his interoperability remark? Does that include commonality?