Hayden Ricketts: Retired Lieutenant Colonel on the Government's new $12 billion defence spending plan

A retired lieutenant can't see how a boost in defence funding will fill missing skills and trades. 

New Zealand's injecting $12 billion into defence over four years – $9 billion of which is new spending.  

It includes enhancing our strike capabilities, replacing the Boeing 757 fleet, and upgrading our javelin anti-tank missiles. 

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Hayden Ricketts told Andrew Dickens the navy, army, and air force already have more vehicles than they can staff. 

He says a commitment to spend more money on gear is great but without more personnel, the plan will fall apart. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
The government has announced a massive twelve billion dollar investment
in defense over the next four years. Nine billion of
it is completely new, with a plan to live defense
spending to more than two percent of GDP in the
next eight years. It comes as we've seen all this
activity from China. They've launched it into ballistic missile in
the Pacific last year, hastling the Jetstar planes. We had
three Chinese warships sailing off the coast of Sydney a

(00:22):
couple of months ago. So retired Lieutenant Colonel Hayden Ricketts
joins me, good morarding to your Hayden.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Good morning, Andrew, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm good. This is a record spend and it's overdue,
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
I think it is. I'd congratulate the government on what
is really a step change for defense spending over the
past thirty five years or sorry, twelve billion dollar commitment
to increase spending over the next four years. It's absolutely massive.
But our observation around the whole plane is that it's
great to see some new ten some new ships for

(00:54):
AVC aircraft Reeforce, and some armored vehicles and things for
for army. But what this misses the mark on is
as the people component parts holiness was identified as a
really contributing factor in the sinking of the moneymnui and
I don't see. We're in the Defense Capability Plan. The
link between that holiness and how the DCP is going
to address the gaps and the key skills and trades

(01:15):
and the defense walls at.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
The moment, indeed, is it it reported that in fact,
the Defense Force is going through a major restructure right
now because of the attack on government spending, and so
there are in fact hundreds of people being laid off,
but they're in the middle of a process right now,
so their morale is already low, but now they're being told, actually,
now you're getting more money. So it's a confusing situation,
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
I think it's a really good signal that the government
is sending to our international allowers and our partners. I
think that you might have seen the little graph that
they come up with the pressure release, and for your listeners,
it's a graph sort of between nineteen eighty showing spending
decreasing from three percent of GDP down to one percent,
so at the moment and then almost like a complete
u tune back up to two percents over east eight years.

(01:57):
That graph is going to brief beautifully capitals all around
the world and especially in the White House. But I think,
in realistic terms, can the government afford to do this?
I'm not convinced. Cynically. We've seen twenty billion dollars invested
or stated investment in twenty sixteen in the DCP, another
fourteen million, sorry, fourteen billion in defense and DCP nineteen

(02:20):
and now another signal of a huge investment. But these
investments get promised, but they don't get delivered on.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
But here's the other thing. I mean, you're talking the money,
but it's not about the money.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
It's the kit.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
And if you buy the wrong kit, you can waste
that money really quickly. I talked about the light armored
vehicles that hen Clark bought for un piece work when
really a lot of people at the time argued, maybe
you should be buying a boat.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Well, you're right. So Army has got a lot of
those light armored vehicles that are not being cruised. Some
of the new bush Masters have bought a lot of
those vehicles that are still not being fully utilized. Navy
Scot's ships tied up despite the factor of the loss
of the money, Anon, and I think air Force has
got more aircraft at the moment that they can comfortably crewe.
A commitment spend more money on more gear is great,

(03:02):
but without the personnel component part of that to support
it in behind, the whole plan just sort of starts
to fall apart.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Hayden, Rickards, I thank you for your service, and I
thank you for your time this morning. That is Hayden
here is retarded Lieutenant Colonel.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
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