The Battle Within – Kiwi Defence Under Siege

As far as Australia is concerned, the RNZAF’s biggest role is the cooperative work done for the Australian Defence Force by five A-4K Skyhawks based at NAS Nowra. This deployment – which makes New Zealand one of the few countries in the world to nowadays have forces based overseas – has been ongoing since 1991. The RNZAF is also affected by a number of the cooperative agreements reached between the NZDF and the ADF. More than a dozen individual arrangements have been made for trans Tasman work ranging from pilot navigation training – put in place just last year – to joint exercises and personnel exchanges. The two nations are also investigating the possibility in regard to buying a common naval helicopter. The RNZAF is certainly looking to replace its ageing Wasp HAS.ls.

Extra tasks taken on by the RNZAF this year have included the despatch of a Hercules to aid the relief efforts in Rwanda. Flown to the African trouble spot at short notice, the Hercules ultimately stayed six weeks, hauling more than 1360 tonnes of cargo and using up 10% of the total flying hours budgeted for the entire Hercules fleet. In mid October, another Hercules was flown at short notice to fly relief supplies into Bougainville. The RNZAF also took part in a variety of exercises and contests, primarily with Australian forces – including the hotly contested Fincastle Trophy submarine hunt.

Meanwhile, there have been more ‘tail-to-teeth’ reforms, designed to focus efforts on operations, not administration and logistics. One of the biggest changes has been the introduction of Total Quality Management. Called Air-Q by the RNZAF, this from-the-bottom-up approach to management contrasts with the usual military top-down command structure. What it means is that the people actually doing the work – the aircraft engineers, supply clerks and all the other personnel so essential to smooth operations – will be given the ability to use their own experience of the job to make their work more efficient. Efficiency and wise spending of available resources is the best way to make the most of a shrinking defence budget. In the New Zealand context a good example of this was the highly effective Kahu upgrade performed on its A-4 Skyhawk fleet. For considerably less cost the aircraft have near F-16 capabilities. Pictured is a two seat TA-4 over RNZAF Base Ohakea. (RNZAF)

Over the past year RNZAF Hercules have been called on to support an increasing range of humanitarian relief efforts at short notice around the globe. Most recently a Hercules was flown to Bougainville to fly in relief supplies in mid October, while another supported relief efforts in Rwanda for more than six weeks. (RNZAF) So from the RNZAF’s operational perspective such problems as the half million dollar budget blow-out on the Ohakea base commander’s house have been annoying but irrelevant – isolated examples in a fundamentally solid system. For all that, the force is concerned by what has happened, especially given the new focus on accountability and efficiency. John Seward, Public Relations officer for the NZDF, says that the system for works administration – recently endorsed by an Audit New Zealand review – is ‘basically sound’, and that the Air Force Manual of Works has been reviewed and rewritten to make its procedures clearer.

The real problem is a public relations matter. The New Zealand media is certainly kept well informed about defence – not least via the pleasant, witty lunches thrown periodically by NZDF chief Vice Admiral Sir Somerford Teagle and Secretary of Defence Gerald Hensley. And the force has been entirely up front about what has been going on. Teagle has been at pains to point out that all the so called ‘revelations’ were actually made by the NZDF itself. But to date, neither the New Zealand Ministry of Defence nor the NZDF have really come to grips with how to publicise the policy underlying their activities. In part this is inevitable: According to the New Zealand Ministry of Defence Policy General Manager Dick Gentles, policy advocacy is not the role either of the NZDF or the Ministry. They have an information function – but pushing policy is entirely up to politicians.

Outside the issues that have plagued the armed forces this year, the biggest ongoing criticism of the defence forces is simple. Nobody threatens New Zealand – so why spend on defence? To the critics, expenditure on the military seems ludicrous in the face of debt levels and burgeoning need for more health, welfare and education services. Close cooperation with Australia – the Anzac frigate project, the A-4 deployment to Nowra, the annual exercises and other work – is seen as an unnecessary luxury by the public. It is a kind of criticism seldom heard in Australia where defence forces are taken very much more as an essential part of national identity.

In June, Teagle took the offensive at the annual conference of the Returned Services Association. He told the RSA that defence was “too important to be used as cannon fodder for peace activists … they damage our standing abroad and fuel the perception that we are unreliable.” So what is New Zealand’s defence policy? So far the NZDF and the Ministry of Defence have taken their task very much as read. There is little high level debate but Government and their policy advisors agree that New Zealand must conform to the international system if it is to survive in the world. This was hammered out in the 1991 White Paper that defines New Zealand’s official defence policy.

Revising that policy ‘was a very involved process,’ according to Gentles. The document was developed with advice and consultation from a whole raft of government bodies including Foreign Affairs and Trade, Commerce, Defence, and even the State Services Commission. This input reflects the fundamental principle of the international system. National defence, trade, diplomatic and economic issues are closely and inextricably linked. A nation that fails to be credible in one area will generally not get credibility in any other. New Zealand cannot escape this truth – as a small and relatively poor nation totally reliant on trade simply cannot afford to buck the system.

Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew recently spelled the situation out when he said that if New Zealand expected to share in the growing prosperity of Asia, it would have to make a credible contribution to Asian security. According to Gentles, ‘credibility’ doesn’t mean quantity. Nobody expects New Zealand to field whole army divisions – but we are expected to make sure that what we have is properly equipped. He points out that credibility can also mean what you get for your dollar.

One point of agreement between the New Zealand policy makers and their critics is over the likelihood of invasion. It is unthinkable. Several thousand kilometres of Tasmania makes the world’s widest moat – crossing it would require a major logistical effort. Indeed, the only nation currently with the sealift capacity to launch a military invasion of New Zealand is the United States. The real threat for New Zealand is not invasion, say the policy makers. It is the national standard of living. New Zealand freight goes through some of the world’s narrowest and most troubled waters. It is here, in the Straits of Malacca, the Suez Canal, and Panama, that Gentles identifies New Zealand’s true security issues. New Zealand relies absolutely on imports and exports for prosperity. Damage to its ability to import essential goods like medicines and oil and to get products to their markets, would do more damage than assault on the coasts.

This View Is Very Different To That Portrayed By Australian Defence Planners For Their Own Nation. Although Australia Has Similar Maritime Vulnerabilities, The Country Is Less Reliant On Trade For Its Prosperity. There Is Also The More Direct Issue Of Invasion Or Attack Down The Archipelagos And Islands From South East Asia.

But this does not mean that New Zealand is not concerned about Australian security. The basing of Skyhawks at Nowra is one concrete way of underlining the very real concern New Zealand has. In the broader picture, an attack on Australia would by definition disrupt New Zealand’s critical trade interests – one of New Zealand’s biggest trading partners is, after all, Australia. There is also the traditional alliance and friendship between the two nations.

Defence also has a critical peacetime role to play. In recent years the New Zealand government has placed a very heavy burden on the NZDF to help underline New Zealand’s international responsibilities. Government initiatives have included sending aircraft, equipment and personnel to join international efforts in Somalia, Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This last is one of New Zealand’s biggest overseas operations in decades, and the first deployment of combat forces since Vietnam.

While this has gone on, the NZDF has had to cope with drastic cuts in the defence budget. In 1988 this stood at just over 2% of gross domestic product. Today it is down to about 1.4%. The latest New Zealand Defence Force Corporate Plan reveals that total spending will be $1,348m in the 94/95 year or less than what the Australian states of NSW and Victoria spend on their police forces. The annual figure is about equal to what government spends in just over three weeks on health, welfare and education.

Inevitably, the recent focus on misappropriation of scarce defence funds and overspending have publicly undermined what the NZDF has achieved in recent years. The question now will be whether the organisation can recover its public image. Perhaps a dose of hard sell is in order. Matthew Wright wrote his MA thesis on historical aspects of Australia – New Zealand defence policy and their relationship with the rest of the world.