Judith Collins: Defence Minister on funding announced for new Defence Force helicopters

The Defence Minister is tight-lipped over whether a major investment in the military, will mean better pay for frontline troops. 

Defence contractors will be lining up their bids to build the Defence Force's new maritime helicopters.

Judith Collins revealed yesterday two-billion dollars has been set aside for new helicopters, while 957-million's been earmarked over four years for Defence Force activities. 

She told Ryan Bridge troops already had quite large pay rises last year, and every time they go overseas, they get extra money on top of their usual pay. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Collins out on the tarmac at for Neua Pie yesterday, Sonorri,
they were a hark here. I think I have to
clarify with her when she comes on. She's here now.
Money has been put aside for the Defense Force to
go shopping for five new c Sprite helicopters. Two billion
dollars set aside, plus a billion over four years on
other stuff. Personnel will get better digs, they'll do longer

(00:20):
deployments around the world, and they will do more of them.
Ministers here, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh, good morning, Ryan.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
And it was now look great announcement. I'm sure it
will be welcomed by those who buy the troops. But
is it Is it an announcement about an announcement? I mean,
we haven't even got a case through Cabinet yet, We've
got no contract sign we've got no procurement register, no
funding really approved, just set aside.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
What was it set aside? It's an announcement to say
to people and those that we are looking to procure from,
we've got the money and we're about to put out
the tenders basically, and so yes, it's actually a very
big announcement. And then the other thing is the extra

(01:09):
almost billion dollars over the next four years for operational reasons.
So it's a big announcement. We're very excited about it,
and our defense force person I've got to say, are
absolutely cockahoomaverage.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
I can imagine the billion dollars is big. We'll get
to that in a second. But why does it need
so that the seas right, helicopter's right, you come out.
You see we've got two billion bucks. We want them,
we want five of them. Why do you then need
to go away? Do they have to go away into
a business case to cabinet? Is that a waste of time?
Given you've said that you know the the financials and

(01:43):
the number.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
It's just the normal processes and government and the reason
there's and I you know, I think it's really important
to understand this is big bucks, it's tax money, and
we always do this, so we always go into a
business case as to why, and then we come up
with the options for procurement. But the reason for that is,

(02:05):
I mean, we're not announcing this without knowing we're going
to do it. But you do need to be able
to put the work in to say nobody wants to
have another purchase back in early two thousands of another
one hundred and something labs. Nobody wants to have that
sort of thing happening, and we haven't. We've had really
good procurement in the last decade or so, so we

(02:26):
need to make sure we continue down that pathway.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
This extra billion you're giving, do you expect our soldiers,
our front line, we'll get a pay rise out of this.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Oh, I'm not going to talk about that because that's
the Chief of Defense Forces.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
But what it means, well.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
My expectation is that we've had some quite big pay
rises last year around remuneration. So when people say, oh,
there's been no paper, that's not true. But actually every
time our people go on deployment, they get a benefit
from that, so they get extra money from that too.
So they want to be deployment. They want to be
sitting at home fighting over remote control. They want to

(03:06):
be out there representing their country. But it does mean
is that they'll have better places to live in that
there'll be better investment in their work they're training, but
also more staff that's also part of it. So you know,
there's it's quite a substantial thing. And frankly, after thirty

(03:27):
five years with a couple of years where that it
wasn't true. Thirty five years of underspending, cutting and just
basically raping and pillaging of our defense force assets. This
is a huge turnaround.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
More missions, longer missions, further missions. Great. They will love this,
and I know it's on operational issue for them to decide,
But do you expect we will see more patrols, more
involvement in drills in the South China Sea, more like
you know, the Valiant Shield exercise with the US, more
of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
I think you're going to see more of a lot more.
So our people have been in Bahrain, have been doing
things around the Red Sea that have been everywhere, and
they're sitting around the Indian Ocean. They're working with the
Indian Navy as well on interdictions around massive drug classicking

(04:19):
heroine and those sorts of things. So you know, you're
just going to see more of them. But also the
big thing for them is that's what they join for.
And I think you know too, is that some of this.
We've got critical estate managed maintenance of twenty six million,
one hundred and four million of over four years. I mean,
that's enormous, But the reason is because nothing's been done

(04:41):
for a very long time.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Winston says we need to get to two percent faster.
Do you agree with them?

Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, I know. Well we've said that if we can,
we will, and we've also said two is that the.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
If you want at Winston once, who's the whole, up
the whole.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
We need to actually have the economy growing so we
can do that. But the other thing is every two
years we'll check in. We're called them that this is
a flaw, not a ceiling, and if we can get faster,
we will. But you can't do it without the personnel.
And that's part of what we're doing here.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
We appreciate your time. Defense Minister Judith Collins. For more
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