Lees-Galloway Iain: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:866] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 Like members who have spoken in the debate before me I would like to pay tribute to our Defence Force personnel who serve us so magnificently and represent us so well overseas in places like Afghanistan the Solomon Islands Timor 
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Leste and all around the world under UN-mandated missions and other missions. There is no doubt that our defence forces are highly regarded and highly respected and that that regard and respect reflect on New Zealand as a nation. I would like to pay particular tribute briefly to Flying Officer Dan Gregory Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen Corporal Ben Carson Corporal Doug Grant Lance Corporal Leon Smith and Lieutenant Tim O’Donnell and their families—those men all being lost to us in the last couple of years whilst serving in operations and carrying out tasks asked of them by their superiors and by the Government. 
I think it is important that parliamentarians and Government Ministers always acknowledge that we send our Defence Force personnel into harm’s way to do tasks that we ask of them and it is in that spirit that I want to talk about the Defence Amendment Bill. We are seeing quite a lot of dissatisfaction within the defence forces about what is happening under this National Government. In fact I think the Minister of Defence Jonathan Coleman is probably looking for some good news because the news has all been bad. The news has been about the lowest recorded morale within the defence forces since we started measuring morale—the lowest ebb ever has occurred under the watch of this Minister Jonathan Coleman. 
We also know that the defence forces are struggling to meet the expectations set upon them by this Government to find $350 million to $400 million worth of we will call them savings but some might call them cuts in order to meet the expectations that this Government has put upon them. Really the truth if we read the briefing to the incoming Minister is that the Defence Force—try as it might—is an awfully long way away from meeting those expectations. We have to ask whether we are going down the same path that we saw when National was in Government during the 1990s when our military forces were completely underfunded and under-resourced their equipment was not kept up to date and they found themselves in real strife when deployed overseas and unable literally to keep up with our allies. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Is the member supporting the bill? Is the member supporting the bill? 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: So I have no doubt that this Minister is looking forward to some good news and I have some good news for the Minister Dr Hutchison. That good news is that Labour will support this bill to the select committee. We do want to hear the debate we want to hear what people have to say about this bill and we do want to hear some of the issues— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: I don’t think Mr Goff is. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Absolutely Dr Hutchison. Mr Goff is in support of this but Mr Goff absolutely rightly was pointing out the lacklustre leadership that we have seen from the National Party in the defence portfolio. You may not have— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Dr Hutchison may not—my apologies Mr Assistant Speaker—have picked up on that in Mr Goff’s speech but I can assure you he is in support of seeing this bill go to select committee. We reserve our position after then because we want to hear the issues debated. We want to have the conversation—we want to have the conversation. 
Essentially this bill facilitates a number of things that have fallen out of the white paper and the value-for-money review exercise. I think it is important to point out that of all the initiatives that have been put in place following that value-for-money exercise not one of those initiatives has actually realised the savings that were anticipated in that value-for-money exercise. It always comes up short and that is why the Defence Force is struggling so much to meet those very extreme expectations that were placed upon them. 
I would like to touch on some of the main components of this bill and perhaps raise some of the issues that we would like to see debated at select committee. Firstly it is true that this bill vests an awful lot of responsibility and power in the Chief of Defence Force. A lot of responsibility that has been shared across a number of positions—the chiefs of the different services who jointly advise the Minister currently—is being concentrated in one person: the Chief of Defence Force. So we absolutely want to know that you have got that appointment right and we want to know that there are some checks and balances to ensure that that power is appropriately concentrated in the Chief of Defence Force. Under this legislation the Chief of Defence Force will now have the authority to appoint the chiefs of the army the navy and the air force whereas previously that was a role that the Government had. Now the Chief of Defence Force will have that role.  
The chiefs of services themselves lose their responsibility and the ability to advise the Minister. The sole adviser in that Defence Force management team is again the Chief of Defence Force so again there is a lot of concentration of the responsibility in the Chief of Defence Force. As has rightly been pointed out for the purpose of seeing more direct leadership of joint forces the Chief of Defence Force will now command the armed forces directly rather than through the service chiefs. There is considerable concentration of authority and responsibility in the Chief of Defence Force in those changes and we would like to hear some of the discussion around what possible issues may arise from that.  
As I pointed out currently the various chiefs of the three services as well as the Chief of Defence Force have a responsibility for advising the Minister and the head of each service has the responsibility for advising the Minister about matters relating to that service. That will no longer be the case and that group of advisers is going to be replaced by a Defence Advisory Board which will be appointed by the Minister himself. Again here we have some question marks. Who will be appointed to that board? What will be the qualifications for being appointed to that board? What is the mechanism for doing so?  
 I suppose there are some questions. Will the construction of this advisory board be a mechanism for future cuts for further cuts and for greater influence from outside the Defence Force to perhaps bring in a private sector view on the Defence Force a privatisation agenda into the Defence Force? Indeed I note that it is set out in the bill how these people are to be remunerated. One hopes that we will not see more political appointments like the types that we have seen in New Zealand On Air on the Defence Advisory Board. Again there is an issue there that we are interested in seeing borne out. 
As to the Territorials and reserve forces the Territorials will cease to exist. Instead of having Territorials and reserve forces what is now proposed in this legislation is active reserves and inactive reserves. Are those active reserves going to be used to replace regular force personnel? That is a very important question that we want to hear borne out and discussed in greater detail. And what will be the role of those inactive reserves? We have great concerns on this side of the House that full-time regular force personnel will have their role replaced by these so-called active reservists. How many reserves will there be? We have heard about how the Government plans to cut the number of Territorials but then it wants to introduce this reserve force. They seem to be sometimes contradicting their own views so we do want to hear more. 
I can see that my time is coming to an end. I just want to say finally that on the issue of civilianisation we are very happy to see that members of the armed forces if they are civilianised will be able to be moved directly into the Civil Service. That should have happened over a year ago before the civilianisation process began. On that we are happy to support this bill going to a select committee and we look forward to those issues being explored further.