Mark Ron: General Debates 
Mark Ron: General Debates 
[Volume:609;Page:6578] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It gives me pleasure to rise in this debate but I have to say something about that speech. It is like looking at a pair of cattle horns is it not? There is a point here and a point there and a lot of bull in-between. I would ask that member to just reflect on some of the things that he has espoused in this House. We do think that the member talks a lot of bull for a highly qualified person. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member does not have to resort to that sort of comment. Please keep the language at least decent. 
RON MARK 
: Talks a lot of cattle beast? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member knows what I mean. 
RON MARK 
: There are so many issues that I could talk about. I could talk about the debacle on home detention and the debacle we have witnessed with immigrant crime being ignored because obviously it does not happen. I could talk about the young lad in Dunedin who killed a woman on a pedestrian crossing and got 200 hours community work for it: cheap life. 
However I shall focus on an issue that is seriously important to this country and one that is being ignored. With the debate that is happening in the House today one of the tragedies will be that the media will not give this issue the coverage it deserves. I want to talk about the appalling situation that exists within our Defence Force manning or personnel and staffing. I have raised the question in the House today and asked the Minister directly how the New Zealand Defence Force is meant to achieve its mission statement as outlined in that Government document the  
New Zealand Defence Force Departmental Forecast 
 when it is critically understaffed. We have seen a report in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 outlining the deficiencies and that report has now been reproduced on the front page of the  
Australian 
 in Australia for the whole world to read just how bad the situation is. 
And how bad is it? I shall read directly from the documents provided to this Government by its own advisers—by the Defence Force. In relation to the Navy—and it is important that this be in  
Hansard 
—there are significant shortages amongst qualified seamen marine engineers and communicators. The diving support capability is also affected by the shortage of trained divers; the planned increase in the number of naval vessels will exacerbate the shortages. The Navy is 25 percent deficient in numbers of lieutenants and leading hands. 
In relation to the Army: the Army continues to suffer acute shortages of staff and experienced personnel and that is where the problem is. At the rank of corporal 19 out of the 34 trades have a greater than 30 percent deficiency. At the sergeant level 16 out of 34 trades have a greater than 30 percent deficiency. Some $750 million worth of light armoured vehicles have been bought. The Army is particularly concerned about the three soldier trade areas of crewmen vehicle mechanics and electronic technicians. The laugh there is that after the Government has boasted that it is buying all that gear it now appears that there will not be the personnel to drive those very expensive gold-plated machines. In terms of captains only 186 substantive captains are available out of 286 established positions. 
Speaking of the Air Force it is worthy of note that last year for a period of 6 months only three out of the required six crews were available to crew our maritime patrol force. That is appalling. The Defence Force is now telling the Government that it may well be that we are entering a situation where it can either deploy on operations or train the next generation—rather than do both as it currently does. What does that mean? It means that the viability of our Defence Force is questionable. 
How did we get to that stage? It is very simple. The Government boasts that it has given three pay rises over 3 or 4 years of something like $46 million. But I say to this Government that had it recognised the problems that it was facing and the seriousness of them it would have found the $46 million in 1 year and so stemmed that outflow of critical highly experienced tradesmen tradeswomen instructors and supervisors. 
This is an appalling situation that the Government is responsible for—no one else. It seems to be able to find endless amounts of money for the arts and yacht races but when it comes to finding the money upfront that it needs to keep our Defence Force personnel inside the Defence Force it cannot find the money within anything less than 4 lousy years. I may be criticised by the Speaker and by other people for the opening of my speech but I cannot think of a word that suitably aptly describes this Government’s attitude towards its defence forces other than “cattle beast”. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.