Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Chris Penk: Defence Minister on new military strike drones

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Chris Penk: Defence Minister on new military strike drones · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: And so the government's looking at buying some drones for
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  Speaker 1: the military. So these drones will be long range, one
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  Speaker 1: way strike drones, and they're looking to pick these up
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  Speaker 1: from Kiwi manufacturers. Some manufacturers here in fact are already
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: making the drones. They ship them off to the Ukraine
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  Speaker 1: so they are tried and tested. And the Defense Minister
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  Speaker 1: is Chris Penk who joins me. Now, hello, Chris, Hello,
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  Speaker 1: good one. Didn't you so these drones strike force, they
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  Speaker 1: just go one way and then they blow something up.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's two kinds of drones that we're interested in,
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  Speaker 2: as you say, primarily from New Zealand manufacturers as possible.
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  Speaker 2: There are the one way attack drones, which are pretty
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  Speaker 2: much what they sound like, and you've described that correctly.
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  Speaker 2: The other type is long range persistent maritime surveillance, which
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  Speaker 2: is of course there's got a lot of the area
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  Speaker 2: that we want to cover and we want to find
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  Speaker 2: out what's out there, so we can put up an
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  Speaker 2: uncrude aircraft and an essence and inhibit through that work
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  Speaker 2: very efficiently expensively.
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  Speaker 1: That sounds good, but don't we have the four poseidons
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  Speaker 1: to do that?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it would actually be to complement their work, and
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  Speaker 2: there are specialized tasks that the maritime patrol aircraft the
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  Speaker 2: poseidons can do that drones can't yet do in terms
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  Speaker 2: of deploying sonar boys, so they put those out in
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  Speaker 2: hunt submarines. But there's other kinds of surveillance that we
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  Speaker 2: can do just from drones. So it's about having both
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  Speaker 2: options covered.
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  Speaker 1: And how much have you got to spend.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we'll see what we need to spend to get
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  Speaker 2: the result. But clearly increasingly uncrew technologies represent best being
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  Speaker 2: for buck literally in the case of the one way
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  Speaker 2: of tech drones.
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  Speaker 1: I think we all agree with that. But at the
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  Speaker 1: same time, how much money you're going to spend on them,
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  Speaker 1: just you know, what's your budget.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we don't want to say exactly what we're going
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  Speaker 2: to need to spend otherwise we'll you know, constrain ourselves
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  Speaker 2: for commercial negotiations. But suffice to say, an increasing percentage
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  Speaker 2: of our defense budget, which in turn is increasing, will
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  Speaker 2: be available for drones, whether it's in the air or
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  Speaker 2: potentially into the future as well on the surface, subsurface,
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  Speaker 2: the ocean and maybe land as well.
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  Speaker 1: All right, now, look on another story, our government paper
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  Speaker 1: has come out saying new Zealand's army recruit training infrastructure
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  Speaker 1: is not in a position to meet existing or future
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  Speaker 1: demand in an effective way, is a report right? And
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  Speaker 1: what are you going to do? Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: Look, I mean Kennet's been considering all kinds of situations
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  Speaker 2: of under investment that we've inherited. One of it, as
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  Speaker 2: you quite rightly say, is in relation to training facilities.
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  Speaker 2: So that's something we're well aware of and we are
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  Speaker 2: investing in different facilities at our camps and bases around
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand to improve executly that situation.
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  Speaker 1: And how much are you going to spend on that one?
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  Speaker 1: Because you know you've committed to a two percent of
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  Speaker 1: GDP budget, you've got twelve billion to spend. We're obviously
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  Speaker 1: not training enough people. How much are you going to
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  Speaker 1: spend on training new people?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it depends how you count what we
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  Speaker 2: need to spend on our people. Clearly, paying conditions a
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  Speaker 2: big part of it. We've got the training facilities, but
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  Speaker 2: actually also part of what's attractive to people who want
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  Speaker 2: to sign up to join the military and of course
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  Speaker 2: to be retained as well, and traditionally that's been an
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  Speaker 2: area where we need to do better is around housing
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  Speaker 2: as well. So a lot of money getting spent taxpay dollars,
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  Speaker 2: which we're spending wisely in a way that represents what
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  Speaker 2: you expect of a prudent approach for government, but a
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  Speaker 2: lot's going to need to be spent in the coming
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  Speaker 2: years to get up to speed and all these things.
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  Speaker 1: And all of that is indicative of our underspending on
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  Speaker 1: defense for generations.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's very fair to say, I think,
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  Speaker 2: you know, successive governments, let's be honest, I have underinvested,
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  Speaker 2: and to the extent that reflects a world of which
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  Speaker 2: we had a more benign strategic environment. That's perhaps fair enough.
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  Speaker 2: But we're in a scenario now where we can't afford
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  Speaker 2: to be complacent. We know economic security is tied in
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  Speaker 2: with national and regional securities, so we're doing what we
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: need to set those basics.
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  Speaker 1: Chris, thank you for waking up early for us, and
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  Speaker 1: thank you for your time today, Chris Pink the Defense Minister.
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  Speaker 1: And here's a fun fact for you. More than eighty
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  Speaker 1: percent of the Defense Force's two point six billion dollar
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  Speaker 1: operating budget is already spent in New Zealand, significantly contributing
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  Speaker 1: to the economy and they're looking for local suppliers for
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  Speaker 1: these drones. So it turns out we're quite good at
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  Speaker 1: this stuff. That's good news. For more from Early Edition
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talks at B
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  Speaker 1: from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio