Prosser Richard: Budget Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prosser Richard: Budget Debate 
[Sitting date: 29 May 2012. Volume:680;Page:2633. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a short call on this quite dreadful Budget as it has been delivered by this quite terrible Government. It has been called a zero Budget and that is what it has delivered for the New Zealand Defence Force—zero nothing zip nada. I have to refer to my notes here because zero can be spelt in a number of different ways.  
I listened to the Minister of Defence earlier in the evening. I listened to Dr Coleman attempting to defend the indefensible. He made a valiant attempt. He is a good man of that I am sure. I am sure that Dr Coleman is genuinely committed to the New Zealand Defence Force. I am sure he genuinely wants to see it perform to the best of its ability and for our forces when they go out into the world to go with the best of equipment and the best of support. It is a testament to his loyalty to the Government of which he is a part that he was able to stand and defend the fact—or attempt to defend the fact—that the Defence Force is not being given enough resourcing for it to be able to defend New Zealand.  
It is also loyalty that drives the men and women of the New Zealand Defence Force to carry on their duties in the face of ever-dwindling resourcing. They do not do it for the money—God knows they do not do it for that. Even in this secular Parliament it is important that God knows it because under this Government’s ongoing defence cuts it really will be God who is tasked with defending New Zealand. But despite Dr Coleman’s best efforts to justify the illogical irrational and downright dangerous penny-pinching of this Government’s meagre and some might say feeble—indeed embarrassing—allocation to defence it remains a fact that New Zealand’s military is disadvantaged by it.  
 I had the honour to accompany the Minister and a number of other members to Exercise Alam Halfa in Waiouru last month. I have to say I was seriously impressed with the commitment the dedication and the professionalism that I saw from our boys and girls in the military forces who were small in number and young in age I have to say to my eyes in a comparative sense now. I was impressed by their continuing commitment.  
I do not see that level of commitment continuing from this House to those people. We continually over the decades and over the years continue to downgrade defence. We continue to cut costs. We continue to cut corners. We continue to believe that we live in some kind of imaginary benign strategic environment—a term that was crafted more than a decade ago by people on this side of the House but by people who in my estimation and in the view of New Zealand First were not grasped of the realities of the military world and did not have a world view that took history into account.  
We do not live in a special bubble of human existence. The world is not different now. The world has not changed. People have not changed; the behaviour of humans and the behaviour of nations have not changed. Conflict will come again because conflict is the natural state for humanity. We live in a break between conflicts. That is all. The Pax Americana has been imposed through the threat of force on the Western World these past three generations. Conflict will come again and we are not prepared for it. The Budget allocation for defence this year by this Government has not assisted in that process.  
The world is an uncertain and unstable place and it is becoming more so by the day. Only this morning on CNN American defence analysts were warning of renewed instability in the Middle East. Tensions are growing between Israel and Iran. The former is already armed with nuclear weapons and the latter is quite possibly seeking to become so. Iran is certainly armed with weapons capable of reaching southern Europe. And there are southern European nations that have been exercising with the Israelis that Iran might take to be enemies. Iran has missiles capable of reaching Italy and Greece. In the South China Sea a half-dozen nations including China lay claim to the Spratly Islands rich in oil and to fishing grounds that are ever more contested and ever more congested. Several nations—Viet Nam the Philippines and China among them—have taken to sending naval vessels out with their fishing fleets in order to protect their national interests.  
Against this backdrop New Zealand is cutting funding to our defence forces. We are civilianising back-office jobs and looking for savings from operational budgets. This is folly. It is misguided and short-sighted. There are people in Christchurch suffering because they failed to make proper account for their insurance and then the earthquakes happened upon them. New Zealand today is not making proper account for our national insurance for our defence. The defence of the nation is the first responsibility of Government not the last. It is the very last thing that should be cut in this nothing Budget. It is a mediocre lacklustre Budget from a mediocre lacklustre Minister of Finance. The National Party should be ashamed of him and of his Budget. Thank you.