Washington’s good

Opinion

Getting back into Washington’s good books

IT’S an unhappy fact that for some years now succes sive governments have allowed political expediency to dic tate New Zealand’s defence policy. Military decisions, especially the purchase of hardware, have been made on the basis of political imperatives, at home or abroad, not on common sense. New Zealand, for instance, reluctantly sent troops to the Vietnam war because its main ally, the United States, demanded it.

The Labour government of David Lange defied public opposition to buy two Anzac frigates from Australia because its anti-nuclear policy had cost it US ally status and the trans-Tasman cousins put the hard word on. Now, the minority National Party government has defied all logic by refusing to buy a third Anzac frigate - not for well-con sidered military reasons but because its motley ragbag of parliamentary supporters threatened its precarious hold on power. And as all political observers know, expediency, not the requirements of good government, dictate any adminis tration’s actions when a general election is looming.

Another frigate purchase would have been enormously unpopular with voters - 76 per cent of them were opposed, according to an opinion poll. National Cabinet ministers and independent MPs backing the government took fright at this because they thought the prospect of another frigate sailing across the horizon would provoke voters to take it out on them at the polls. So the facts that New Zealand is a maritime nation with 40 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product derived from exports - 98 per cent of them by vol ume carried by sea - and has the world’s fourth largest Exclusive Economic Zone to safeguard were ignored.

Instead, the government took up an offer it said it could not refuse from the US to lease (and later buy) 26 second hand F-16 fighter aircraft. Apart from taking these off the Americans’ hands - they were originally sold to Pakistan in a deal that fell through - thereby getting back into Washington’s good books, it is hard to see any justification for this decision. Admittedly, they will replace New Zealand’s ageing Skyhawk planes, but there are only 19 of them and the 1997 defence white paper said they had “suf ficient life left to perform effectively into the next decade”.

That paper also said a three frigate navy was the minimum required to maintain New Zealand’s maritime defence responsibilities, which extend to the Cook Islands, 4000 km away at its farthest part. That leaves a question mark over New Zealand’s ability to respond to low-level contin gencies in the South Pacific, one of the key defence policy tasks accepted by successive governments throughout this century. Defence Minister Max Bradford said the govern ment simply could not afford both the ship and the planes as well as the badly-needed re-equipment of the Army, which it had already budgeted for. He said the government had not resiled from a blue water navy with three so-called combatant vessels but has put off a decision on replacing the Leander class HMNZS Canterbury until 2002.

But the government had advice that a fleet of three Anzac frigates would be 14 per cent cheaper to run over five years than the mixture of classes the navy now faces.

It will also have compatibility and training problems with a third ship of a different type.

Now even if you accept that New Zealand does not need three frigates - and many do - and if you buy the argument that a third Anzac at about $5OO million is too much to spend, it is hard to see the rationale for the F-16s.

Leasing and taking up the option to buy will cost about $BOO million over 10 years and they are after all “fighters”, aircraft built for offensive operations rather than the defen sive intentions of the frigates. They are, as more than one commentator has noted, strike planes better suited to the needs of a bigger country.

Turning down the third frigate has also cost the country a bigger share of the joint Australia-New Zealand ship con struction programme which has already brought more than $6OO million worth of work to about 500 New Zealand companies and diversified this country’s manufacturing capabilities. There was some encouraging news for New Zealand’s South Pacific neighbours in the latest defence package. The government is moving belatedly to correct one of its biggest military blunders in recent times, the pur chase of a roll-on roll-off merchant boat that was supposed to give the defence force a military sealift ship capability.

HMNZS Charles Upham was bought four years ago to give New Zealand a troop carrier to deploy an Army force overseas and a greatly improved capability to assist with disaster relief in the South Pacific. After three months in service, it was withdrawn because bluntly it rolled around so much everyone aboard was permanently seasick.

The government has decided to bring forward estimated expenditure of $34 million (on top of the $22 million ini tial cost) to make it suitable for the job for which it was bought. The ship - named after one of New Zealand’s great est war heroes who must be turning in his grave - was char tered out last year and is now carrying cargoes of fruit around the Mediterranean - a lemon carrying oranges!

It would be funny if we were not talking about defence of the realm and nearly $2 billion worth of taxpayers’ money annually. And what’s more the frigate veto has done nothing for the cause of New Zealand’s Mixed Member Proportional system of preferential voting which is under threat enough, as I wrote in November last year. ■

David Barber

Wellington