Faafoi Kris: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Faafoi Kris: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:869] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 I like many speakers in this debate would like to begin by paying tribute to the men and women who serve in our Defence Force. I am sure that despite the passionate debate from around the House tonight all of us as a collective have much respect for our navy air force and army. Our Defence Force personnel when they are acting on our behalf both at home and abroad very much exceed the expectations from some of our allies especially when they are overseas. 
I am a bit disappointed that this is only a 5-minute call because after the last contribution from the National Party about the fact that we should just throw this thing away and not worry about the details of it I really am aghast. And to claim that on this side of the House we have been caught out and we are getting stuck in the weave and the detail of the Defence Amendment Bill really will wake people at home at quarter to 9. 
It is not us who have been caught out when we are debating the Defence Amendment Bill; it is actually the Government. Although it is looking at what we call “capability management” I think it is actually capability mismanagement. What is this bill about? I will answer the question of the member for Otago Jacqui Dean— 
Michael Woodhouse 
: Waitaki. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: I am sorry the member for Waitaki—my apologies. I withdraw and apologise. 
Simon O’Connor 
: Details details. 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: We do not want to get caught in the details! For the member for Waitaki what does this bill do? In the explanatory note it says that capability management which is one of the things this bill sets out to achieve is “changing the way in which the Secretary of Defence and the Chief of Defence Force will work together regarding the procurement replacement repair and disposal of defence assets:”. The best-case scenario on that side of the House may be to spin that as efficiencies or savings but as many speakers on this side of the House have said this is not about efficiencies and savings; this is purely about cuts cuts and more cuts. As we have heard—again getting stuck in the detail—the Defence Force has been asked to find $350 million of efficiencies annually of savings annually or of cuts annually to make sure it can meet the targets that have been set by this Government. No one is safe in the Defence Force. Not even our proud members of the Defence Force bands are safe as we have heard time and time again from a number of speakers. Seven of the 10 bands that play for us at a number of public occasions are set for the chop saving the taxpayer the whopping amount of $900000! 
Iain Lees-Galloway 
: That’s about the price of a swimming pool isn’t it? 
KRIS FAAFOI 
: It is roughly about the price of a swimming pool in Tokyo. I go back to the figure of $350 million a year of savings because it is also roughly about the size of the reported efficiencies that the police are supposed to be looking for in the latest reports of a proposal that is before the Government at the moment. That will seriously affect the police. The changes that we are looking at here will seriously affect the front-line capabilities of the Defence Force. 
Cuts cuts and more cuts and what will this do to the credibility and the reputation of our Defence Force staff? I spoke earlier in my contribution about the high regard in which they are held. If we are going to look seriously at major cuts to the Defence Force budget our ability to act in the way that we have and our proud reputation overseas will be seriously seriously affected. As my colleague Iain Lees-Galloway has said the cuts that are happening already in the Defence Force are starting to have a serious effect on morale within our troops—excuse the pun. The New Zealand Defence Force outgoing attitude survey completed last year showed that our Defence Force morale has fallen to its lowest point in 8 years and that the number of people wanting to leave the military is higher than it was 2 years ago. 
That leads me to the point of how we attract our young Kiwis to serve in the Defence Force at a time of pretty high unemployment. You know you think that the Defence Force might be a career option for many of our youngsters who cannot find work or training; I think there are 64000 of them at the moment—a very large number. At the moment you would think that the Defence Force might be one of the ways that they could do something meaningful but when you are making cuts of this nature it is not going to be very easy to attract younger people to the Defence Force. 
We will be recommending that this bill goes to a select committee. There are a number of issues that we have pointed out that are worthy of debate worthy of seeing what the public has said and we commend this bill to the next stage.