Goff Phil: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Goff Phil: Defence Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:855] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 If I can begin as the Minister of Defence did by acknowledging the work done by the men and women of the New Zealand Defence Force. As a Minister I had the privilege of working with them over 9 years in deployments in all parts of the world. I have the greatest respect for their efficiency for their courage for the way they carry out their operations and they do this all on a very tight budget. We are a small country and we made hard decisions when we were in Government about what we could sustain and what we could not. There is no talk in this Defence Amendment Bill about an air combat force for example. National made a lot of fuss about the abolition of it but it has never talked about bringing it back. 
I have the greatest respect for the Defence Force but you know the one word I did not hear in the Minister’s introduction of this bill was what the bill was really about—and that is a three-letter word called “cut” or “cuts” actually in the plural. Because what this bill is about is what we learn in the briefing to the incoming Minister of Defence Mr Coleman— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: “Dr Coleman” to you sonny. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Dr if he prefers; if he stands on his title. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: “The Maestro”. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: “The Maestro” to some for his extraordinary performance in the Mt Albert by-election. Well I want to come back to what the Minister did not talk about—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Order! Interjections are not to be between members but at the speaker. We have two members here who are interjecting on each other. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The briefing to the incoming Minister gives it away and I just want to read one sentence: “Cabinet has directed an annual recurring savings target for the New Zealand Defence Force of $350 million - $400 million by 2015.” What this bill is about and what the intention of the Government is is to cut $400 million a year from the Defence Force. And you cannot Minister talk out of both sides of your mouth by talking about respect for those in the Defence Force their sacrifice the risk they put themselves under and at the same time pull the rug out from under the Defence Force by slashing expenditure by $400 million a year. 
Elsewhere of course in this briefing for the incoming Minister it refers to the Territorial Force which is also included in this bill. And what does it say about that? They are going to cut it by one-third—cut the Territorial Force by one-third. Six hundred people are going to be down the road in the Territorial Force. Now I want to say this about that aspect to the Minister. Since 2000 more than 1000 of the Territorial Force have served this country overseas in war zones in deployments. But for the Territorial Force the regular force would have been under real pressure. Forget what this bill says about the Territorial Force; it is what the Government is doing to it that counts and it is gutting it by slashing it by one-third—one-third. 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is all very interesting Mr Goff’s opinions here but a first reading speech is meant to be about the content of the bill and we are not really hearing any of that. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: No I do not need any help. The reality is that the member of course is entitled to have some form of rebuttal. He is coming to the end of that now and I am sure that he is coming to the point of the bill. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. With respect a major thrust of this bill is about a thing called capability management and I think everything that my colleague Mr Goff has said has been very germane to that theme. If the Minister does not know his own bill he should read it. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Thank you for your contribution. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The bill is indeed about lifting the capacity and the capability of the Defence Force and what I am saying is that you have got meaningless clauses in this bill renaming the Territorial Force as the Reserve Force but what is really happening about capability and capacity is that National is gutting it by cutting it by one-third—600 people down the road. I want to ask the Minister what this bill does to sustain regular forces if we increase our deployments overseas when you need to call on Territorial forces to back it up. If he is going to cut the Territorial Force by one-third renaming it the Reserve Force is just an exercise in hypocrisy. It will not be there as the Reserve Force; one-third of them will be down the road. Interestingly it will be the areas of the country— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member knows he cannot use the “h” word in here. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Actually I was about to raise that. The member is quite right. You cannot use the “h” word here. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Speaking to the point of order Mr Speaker. I was not calling the Minister a hypocrite; I was saying that the bill was an exercise in hypocrisy and that is within the Standing Orders. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Well the thing is that as a Speaker one has to look at the content and the atmosphere in the House at the time. If it is going to lead to disorder then one has to be careful in the way in which one uses it. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: In everything about this bill every area that is covered in the bill the Government is taking retrogressive actions to damage the capability of the Defence Force. I have talked about the Territorial Force. I could talk about the military bands. You know it is going to save $900000 by slashing seven out of 10 of the military bands. That is the same amount that it was planning to spend on a flash swimming pool in Tokyo. I have got to say that it is far more important to me that on Anzac Day this year when we turn up at the parades the seven bands that will be disbanded will still be there but they will be playing for the last time. I ask the Minister why it is that his actions are going to lead to seven out of 10 of those military bands being disbanded. Who will be playing on Anzac Day? Who will be out there on Armistice Day? Who will be there at the commemorative ceremonies that are required for us to celebrate the Defence Force which he talks so much about and about their sacrifice? Who will be there to stand up and remember that by providing the military bands that accompany those parades? I say that is the wrong thing. 
Of course the bill is also about civilianisation. Well that is another word for redundancy. There are 500 redundancies that have occurred in the last year in the Defence Force and two-thirds of those are uniformed people. I ask the Minister this: in the process of civilianisation how is it that I hear of uniformed people in high positions who have been made redundant and end up in the same position with the same salary and back in uniform after they have got their redundancy money? I ask the Minister whether that is happening and what he is doing about that because that is a wastage of money when supposedly what the Government is trying to do is save money. 
You know the only people who have made money out of the defence review and the white paper are the expensive consultants whom the Minister has employed. Rod Deane the former Telecom chief was very well paid for his job but what does he know about the military? And there is some outfit called Pacific Road Corporate Finance which made a lot of money. But what this bill and what the Government’s actions have been about has been undermining the military by cutting the funding of it. I want to say that the then Chief of Defence Force—that is Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae—described the outcome of the defence review as “challenging” and anybody who knows the Defence Force and the Civil Service knows that the word “challenging” is what public servants say when they think that the Government is halfway to la-la land. And that is what Jerry Mateparae said about it. 
What the Government has not done is actually make the cuts that should have been made. Why is the Minister spending $400 million to $700 million on upgrading the air defence missile systems when the only purpose of that is to allow the frigates to be up in the Gulf for maybe a month every 2 years and to perhaps please the United States? I say to this Minister instead of cutting the defence personnel and instead of undermining the morale of that organisation cut where you can afford to cut on the “nice-to-haves”. It is a reflection on this Government that in the latest defence review survey of opinion it shows Defence Force morale at the lowest level since the survey began—the lowest level since the survey began. Twelve hundred people have quit the Defence Force in the last 12 months—this in the midst of the Government’s recession. That shows you what the morale of the Defence Force is. And there is nothing in this bill that addresses that question. Having a good Defence Force is essential to New Zealand. Thank God for a Labour Government that put the money into capital acquisitions and building up the Defence Force. 
 This bill is about cutting. This bill is about reducing capacity. This bill is about a Government that talks big when it comes to the importance of defence but does not back it up with action and the funding to provide an effective Defence Force and the equipment that is capable of serving the people who represent this country so proudly.