Goff Phil: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12139. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):Every day in this Chamber as we look around the walls and at the plaques that are displayed there we can feel and take pride in the courage and the achievements of the New Zealand Defence Force. It is therefore with enormous sorrow that I witnessed at the estimates hearing on defence the enormous damage that has been inflicted on the New Zealand Defence Force by this National Government—by actions contrary to promises made at the 2008 election. I remember the campaign where the National Party was saying that it would strengthen the New Zealand Defence Force. It has done exactly the opposite. It has cut its funding it has weakened it it has demoralised it and people have left in droves. That is a real shame.What we have found—actually in one of the Minister of Defence’s answers to a written question although he denied it—is that the real operating expenditure on New Zealand defence has been cut this year. The Government has cut the operating expenditure for defence. The army and the navy have had $100 million taken out. That is not chicken feed; it is $100 million from the army and the navy. There was a $63 million cut in salary payments. Do you know how it got the salary payment cuts? It got them by cutting the New Zealand Defence Force by 1269 personnel since it became the Government. It never promised that at the 2008 election. It has cut the Defence Force and it has reduced the capacity of the Defence Force to act on our behalf. The Minister in the chair the Minister of Defence denied that last year and he denied it again this year but I have the actual transcript from the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee hearing. This is what the Chief of Defence Force said: “We’re accepting that that loss of people does degrade capability”. That is what Rhys Jones said. He has fronted up and admitted what the Minister would not—that the cuts have degraded the capability of the New Zealand Defence Force.It is not even just across the board. Anyone who has served in the military here knows that the vital ranks in the military are at the NCO level. The first lieutenant always depends on the sergeant. It goes back a long time in history. It is the warrant officers. Do you know Minister that at the warrant officer level the attrition has increased fivefold since your party became the Government—fivefold attrition at awarrant officer level? It takes 15 years for somebody to get to that level and develop the skill and the experience they need. That is what this Government has done.In 1 year the Government increased the attrition of the New Zealand Defence Force from 8 percent to 21 percent. Between one in four and one in five in that year alone left the New Zealand Defence Force—a level of attrition never seen before. To misquote Churchill never in the history of the New Zealand Defence Force have so many people left in such a short period of time. That has damaged our Defence Force.Forget the party politics; let us have a look at what the Auditor-General says about that because she put out a report in the last year. She said that the Government has damaged the bonds of camaraderie integrity and commitment that are part of the New Zealand Defence Force—damaged those bonds. She said that the Government has chosen “a course that led to a drop in morale and an increase in attrition resulting in reduced capability.” The Chief of Defence Force says there is reduced capability the Auditor-General says there is reduced capability and the Minister says no it has not affected what the Defence Force can do. Who do you believe? Do you believe the Chief of Defence Force or do you believe the Minister of Defence who is making excuses for his Government’s own inadequacy?The Auditor-General said that civilianisation had been a disaster. She said that actually people were treated in a way that was almost a calculated insult. Do you know that the people who were being made redundant got letters? Those letters—I will not take up time but I have got them here and I can table them if you want to read them—told people who were being dumped from the Defence Force to save money that they were being dumped because they lacked commitment they did not have potential and they were not as good as their peers. That is what it said in blunt terms. The Defence Force hung its head in shame and said: “Yes we told good people they were bad.” So Minister you have made hundreds of people redundant and you have told them through the Defence Force that it was their own fault because they lacked commitment and they lacked potential. Come down to the RSA and talk to some of the people who have served for 10 or 20 years who have been made redundant. Your Defence Force leadership Minister said that they were being made redundant because they lacked commitment. These are people who have given their lives to New Zealand and that was the loyalty that was reciprocated to them.I want to say that when you put the Defence Force under pressure that puts lives at risk and well-being at risk. I want to draw on the court of inquiry report into the death of Corporal Douglas Hughes. Do you know what that court of inquiry report told us? You will know this only because I am telling you. The Government will not release the court of inquiry report. The Hughes family wants it released but the Government will not release it. Do you know what it said? It said that it cut the pre-deployment training going into Afghanistan from 5 to 3 weeks. Outcomes were not achieved. The Defence Force rushed through things like stress management and stress identification. The report said that the commanding officer and the warrant officer were not confident that people were adequately trained but they had no choice but to deploy them. It said that the deployment went on for 2 months longer than it should have and that people were exhausted at the end. It said that the forward operating base at Romero did not have enough defibrillators so if there were mass casualties they would not have been able to cope. And the Minister will not admit to those things.Do you know what they did at the select committee? It was really interesting. They got poor Lieutenant Colonel Brett Wellington who was the commanding officer of that crib up to the table to try to rebut what I was saying. But I have got the transcript in my hand of what he said. Here it is. Lieutenant Colonel Wellington said: “I believe the pre-deployment training was reduced and it did put pressure on us in respect to achievingthe competencies that we would ordinarily achieve before deploying overseas.” I asked him whether he was misquoted in the court of inquiry report. He said no. We had Gerry Brownlee in this House speaking on behalf of the Minister and he said I was wrong. Here is the commander of the crib at the select committee saying exactly what he thought. I asked him about the risk of the longer deployment and he said: “Yes. Me and my commanders had to manage that risk and we did that in several ways.” I asked him whether the court of inquiry was right about the Romero operating base and he said: “Absolutely. We would have been challenged if we had mass casualties.” Is that good enough Minister? Is it good enough when we put the lives of our people serving our country at risk in Afghanistan that you cut corners and they cut corners? That court of inquiry said it and that is why the Government continues to suppress it.I want to go on to another aspect of another court of inquiry and the impact of low morale and high attrition because that does create greater potential for mistakes mishaps and things not being done well. Private Michael Ross died in the lake nearWaiōuru last year. The court of inquiry report in this case was released. It said it was not a freak accident. It was not even an accident caused by a couple of errors. It was an accident that was absolutely avoidable. It listed the things that the Defence Force was not doing well that led to his death. There were 12 different things Minister 12 different causes. You have a life jacket where the canister is empty and it does not inflate when you are carrying aminimi machine-gun and it drags you to the bottom. The life jackets were not fit for purpose. They had never been trained in the use of the life jackets. The life jacket was not inflated properly and that caused the accident. The safety boat was not alongside it and when it turned up it had one person not three people. There were 12 major errors. That is a sign Minister of a Defence Force that is dysfunctional. It is dysfunctional because of the pressure that this Government has put on it and that is a disgrace.I am really proud of the men and women who serve in our Defence Force but they are not being treated well. Their loyalty to New Zealand is not being reciprocated by the Government’s loyalty to its men and women in uniform and that simply is not good enough.I want to finish on this point. It came out over the weekend that the defence operating manual said that someone was subversive if they brought the Government into disrepute. I guess I have just been subversive. Worse still it said that journalists were subversive because they did that. How did the Minister of Defence respond? First of all he would not front up and when he did front up—and I heard him onCheckpoint —he wanted to know who had leaked the document. He did not express outrage that this document which has been around for a number of years had that clause in it; he wanted to know who leaked it.