Hayden Ricketts: Retired Lieutenant Colonel on the NZ Defence Force's cost cuts

The Defence Force is keeping details of its cost cuts secret. 

But Newstalk ZB can reveal NZDF admitted, in internal communications, that it would have to scale back or cut programmes that impact how people view the force, and New Zealand's reputation. 

The defence force also noted the sinking of the Manawanui added to its financial struggles. 

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Hayden Ricketts told Ryan Bridge that since there’s going to be a $12 billion investment over the next four years, they’re unable to cut what is normally one of the first things to go: personnel. 

He says that NZDF is going to need civilian workers to do the introduction of service, to do the staff work, to do the business cases and the papers for cabinet that comes with that money.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got fresh warnings this morning of reputational damage to
our Defense Force if planned cost cutting goes ahead. The PSA.
This is the Union sounding the alarm after the Defense
Force revealed one hundred and thirty million dollar budget shortfall
for twenty four to twenty five and a letter to
the union. The Defense Force confirmed it's already scraped together
one hundred million dollars in savings, but says more enduring
cuts may be needed to be locked in because not

(00:22):
everything can be reversed. Hayden Ricketts is retired lieutenant colonel
at Mission Home Front with US this morning. Hayden, good morning, Yeah,
good morning, Ryan. How can you just explain this. We're
hearing about billions of dollars going into the Defense Force,
biggest investment ever, doubling to two percent of GDP. How
why are we talking about cuts?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
There is a really good question, Ryan. Against the context
of twelve billion dollar investment over the next four years,
it would appear that cutting the civilian workforce right at
the moment would not be the right thing to do. So,
if we paint the context as it alluded to, one
hundred and thirty million dollars was needs to be saved.
They found one hundred from internal savings, leaving about thirty

(01:06):
now when the PSA kicked us off and sort of
like tover last year, the Defense Forces, you know, there's
three hundred and seventy four positions which we're going to
be cut or acts. And actual fact is there's eighty
people that are looking at being effected of losing their jobs.
And that's significant for eighty people. But the money they're
going to save from cutting those eighty people isn't going
to be the money they want to save. The stock
the juice is not going to be worth the squeeze

(01:28):
on this one. If you have a look at the
amount of money that's coming down the investment pipeline, the
Defense Force is going to need people in the starf
areas to do the introduction to service, to do the
staff work, to do the business cases in the papers
for cabinet that for that money. Now, in some cases
the people are looking at cutting, are the people that
do that work well? Do both? I don't know that's
the dreath west of squeeze.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
But do we know that, Hayden? Because the Defense Forces
come out and said they are not telling us specifically
what's being cut, So how do we know they're cutting
the bits will need down the track.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Or if you can, if you do maths, you need
more people to do more work. You've got more investment
coming down the pipeline. So it doesn't follow that you
cut your personnel workforce at the time when you need
them to do their investments.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, but not everybody is going to be doing worthwhile stuff.
I mean, did the defense force? The civilian arm I'm
talking about here is like any other department, has people
doing things that actually aren't important, you know, So are
there people doing unimportant things that we're getting rid of?
And the answer is we just we don't really know.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No. So on the uniform side, the armies short of
a thousand people from the mandated number of fifty one
fifty or five thousand. Air Force is short by two
hundred and fifty, Navy short by a similar amount. We've
seen what happens when people when there's not enough suitably
qualified and experienced people to do the work you think ships.

(02:50):
So to suggest that there are people in there that
aren't doing the right work, I think that's that's a
preposterous statement and quite insulting. And if there's any reputational
damage that comes to the Defence Force. It's from people
making statements like that. Have a look at what our
defense force is doing in the Indian Ocean with the
deployment Ta Kaha. We've just deployed more Defense Force people
to Nelson to help out the helps out these people.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
No no, no, no, no, no, no no no that I'm
not talking about the Defense Force personnel who have been
deployed to these areas and talking about well, you know
pen pushes in Wellington. Is there is there is there
a problem with the back office in Wellington because that
is what the government says that they're trying to where
they're trying to shift the money from.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So those policy statements came out and from the previous government.
Remember the large back office cuts that got made to
the public sector. These decisions got made under that context
in October last year. But has the situation changed, I
would argue yes it has. Is the global security environment changes,
as we've seen ships in the Tesmen Sea, as we've
sunk our own ships on a good day in the

(03:57):
long place in the Southea specific now we're going to
need people to do that to support these investments and
right now the context has changed, the situation has changed,
and I don't think the juice is worth to squeeze
on these particular workful savings.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Okay, all right, hadn't appreciate your perspective this morning. Hayden Ricketts,
a retired lieutenant colonel Mission home Front. For more from
Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to news Talks.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
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