New Zealand’s Defence Force Faces $360 Million Budget Blowout
The Chief of Defence has stated that due to a budget blowout, the military will need to ‘pause or turn off’ a number of activities.
New Zealand’s Defence Force (NZDF) has acknowledged that it is $360 million (US$211 million) over budget and is now evaluating which programs to cancel or postpone as a result.
“So that number, I don’t know how it’s got out,” Chief of Defence Air Marshal Tony Davies informed MPs during the NZDF’s regular appearance at Parliament.
The reductions will involve a $50 million cut to its military and civilian workforce in the 2025/26 financial year, a move that the public sector union, the PSA, believes will jeopardize New Zealand’s national security and disaster response capabilities at home and in the Pacific.
The PSA has stated that approximately 200 civilian workforce positions, out of around 3,000, have been eliminated this year, including 144 voluntary redundancies and other vacant positions that remain unfilled.
This necessitated the minister of defence approving uniformed personnel undertaking the work, a power not used since 2001.
New Zealand Defence Force depart on the F-230H Hercules at the RNZAF Base in Auckland, New Zealand, on April 13, 2022. Phil Walter/Getty Images
“The civilian workforce is cut to the bone right now,” stated PSA Assistant Secretary Fleur Fitzsimons.
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“There has already been a damaging round of voluntary redundancies and NZDF has refused to fill important roles when civilian personnel have left.
“The government is favouring tax relief for landlords over national security and a combat-ready defence force supported by civilian personnel.
“The unstable geopolitical climate should be a wake-up call for a government obsessed with austerity. Now is not the time to undermine the defence of New Zealand. The Defence Force costs what it costs, and the government needs to front up and pay.”
Yet with little indication that Cabinet will relent, Davies and other senior officers are devising a plan of cuts.
“There’s a lot of things we can’t afford to do at the moment,” he informed MPs. “There’s a whole raft of things that we have to pause or turn off to ensure that we can maintain our flying, sailing, shooting, and deploying activities.”
While all key missions are still progressing, training, travel, and fostering relationships with foreign partners will either cease or be put on hold.
“The issue really is it takes us longer to prepare for those missions and deployments, and we may not be able to send the same number of individuals as before or for as long,” Davies explained.
“I’ll have to say the leaking of that figure was not intended. We were talking to a select group of individuals within the headquarters to brief them on what’s happening with our workforce program. As we’ve promised, we are striving to be very transparent with them.”
Defence Minister Judith Collins mentioned that the NZDF received extra funding in this year’s budget while other agencies did not.
The NZDF is also facing escalating fuel and ammunition expenses as well as the maintenance of facilities and housing.
Collins has suggested that the adoption of new technology will enhance New Zealand’s defence but was unable to clarify how this would happen when already exceeding the budget.
“You‘ll have to wait and see for the DCP [Defence Capability Plan] to be released, and as for the budget, you’ll have to wait for that too,” Collins informed journalists.
