Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Hayden Ricketts: Retired Lieutenant Colonel on the NZ Defence Force's cost cuts

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Hayden Ricketts: Retired Lieutenant Colonel on the NZ Defence Force's cost cuts · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've got fresh warnings this morning of reputational damage to
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  Speaker 1: our Defense Force if planned cost cutting goes ahead. The PSA.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: This is the Union sounding the alarm after the Defense
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  Speaker 1: Force revealed one hundred and thirty million dollar budget shortfall
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  Speaker 1: for twenty four to twenty five and a letter to
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  Speaker 1: the union. The Defense Force confirmed it's already scraped together
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars in savings, but says more enduring
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  Speaker 1: cuts may be needed to be locked in because not
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  Speaker 1: everything can be reversed. Hayden Ricketts is retired lieutenant colonel
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  Speaker 1: at Mission Home Front with US this morning. Hayden, good morning, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: good morning, Ryan. How can you just explain this. We're
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  Speaker 1: hearing about billions of dollars going into the Defense Force,
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  Speaker 1: biggest investment ever, doubling to two percent of GDP. How
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  Speaker 1: why are we talking about cuts?
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  Speaker 2: There is a really good question, Ryan. Against the context
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  Speaker 2: of twelve billion dollar investment over the next four years,
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  Speaker 2: it would appear that cutting the civilian workforce right at
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  Speaker 2: the moment would not be the right thing to do. So,
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  Speaker 2: if we paint the context as it alluded to, one
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  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty million dollars was needs to be saved.
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  Speaker 2: They found one hundred from internal savings, leaving about thirty
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  Speaker 2: now when the PSA kicked us off and sort of
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  Speaker 2: like tover last year, the Defense Forces, you know, there's
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  Speaker 2: three hundred and seventy four positions which we're going to
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  Speaker 2: be cut or acts. And actual fact is there's eighty
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  Speaker 2: people that are looking at being effected of losing their jobs.
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  Speaker 2: And that's significant for eighty people. But the money they're
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  Speaker 2: going to save from cutting those eighty people isn't going
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  Speaker 2: to be the money they want to save. The stock
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  Speaker 2: the juice is not going to be worth the squeeze
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  Speaker 2: on this one. If you have a look at the
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  Speaker 2: amount of money that's coming down the investment pipeline, the
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  Speaker 2: Defense Force is going to need people in the starf
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  Speaker 2: areas to do the introduction to service, to do the
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  Speaker 2: staff work, to do the business cases in the papers
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  Speaker 2: for cabinet that for that money. Now, in some cases
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  Speaker 2: the people are looking at cutting, are the people that
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  Speaker 2: do that work well? Do both? I don't know that's
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  Speaker 2: the dreath west of squeeze.
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  Speaker 1: But do we know that, Hayden? Because the Defense Forces
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  Speaker 1: come out and said they are not telling us specifically
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  Speaker 1: what's being cut, So how do we know they're cutting
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  Speaker 1: the bits will need down the track.
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  Speaker 2: Or if you can, if you do maths, you need
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  Speaker 2: more people to do more work. You've got more investment
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  Speaker 2: coming down the pipeline. So it doesn't follow that you
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  Speaker 2: cut your personnel workforce at the time when you need
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  Speaker 2: them to do their investments.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but not everybody is going to be doing worthwhile stuff.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, did the defense force? The civilian arm I'm
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  Speaker 1: talking about here is like any other department, has people
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  Speaker 1: doing things that actually aren't important, you know, So are
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  Speaker 1: there people doing unimportant things that we're getting rid of?
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  Speaker 1: And the answer is we just we don't really know.
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  Speaker 2: No. So on the uniform side, the armies short of
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  Speaker 2: a thousand people from the mandated number of fifty one
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  Speaker 2: fifty or five thousand. Air Force is short by two
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  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty, Navy short by a similar amount. We've
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  Speaker 2: seen what happens when people when there's not enough suitably
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  Speaker 2: qualified and experienced people to do the work you think ships.
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  Speaker 2: So to suggest that there are people in there that
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  Speaker 2: aren't doing the right work, I think that's that's a
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  Speaker 2: preposterous statement and quite insulting. And if there's any reputational
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  Speaker 2: damage that comes to the Defence Force. It's from people
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  Speaker 2: making statements like that. Have a look at what our
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  Speaker 2: defense force is doing in the Indian Ocean with the
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  Speaker 2: deployment Ta Kaha. We've just deployed more Defense Force people
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  Speaker 2: to Nelson to help out the helps out these people.
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  Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no, no no no that I'm
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  Speaker 1: not talking about the Defense Force personnel who have been
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  Speaker 1: deployed to these areas and talking about well, you know
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  Speaker 1: pen pushes in Wellington. Is there is there is there
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  Speaker 1: a problem with the back office in Wellington because that
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  Speaker 1: is what the government says that they're trying to where
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  Speaker 1: they're trying to shift the money from.
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  Speaker 2: So those policy statements came out and from the previous government.
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  Speaker 2: Remember the large back office cuts that got made to
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  Speaker 2: the public sector. These decisions got made under that context
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  Speaker 2: in October last year. But has the situation changed, I
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  Speaker 2: would argue yes it has. Is the global security environment changes,
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  Speaker 2: as we've seen ships in the Tesmen Sea, as we've
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  Speaker 2: sunk our own ships on a good day in the
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  Speaker 2: long place in the Southea specific now we're going to
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  Speaker 2: need people to do that to support these investments and
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  Speaker 2: right now the context has changed, the situation has changed,
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  Speaker 2: and I don't think the juice is worth to squeeze
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  Speaker 2: on these particular workful savings.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, hadn't appreciate your perspective this morning. Hayden Ricketts,
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  Speaker 1: a retired lieutenant colonel Mission home Front. For more from
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to news Talks.
• 4:24
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• 4:27
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