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Author: Nighthawk

Top ministers order Defence Force spending cuts to help lift New Zealanders' 'wellbeing'

An article in the New Zealand Herald, Radio New Zealand and NewstalkZB, saying that the Defence force needs to have more cutbacks for the well being of New Zealand...

Top ministers have ordered a "deep dive" into the Defence Force's spending in a bid to free up more funding to "lift the wellbeing of New Zealanders".

A document obtained under the Official Information Act shows Treasury and the Defence Ministry have been instructed to free up what's deemed to be less-important spending.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson said the cost-cutting exercise would focus on projects which aren't delivering.

The Opposition is critical of the Government plan, as it comes at a time of "heightened global instability".

The idea would be to make it available to other government areas, in a bid to lift the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

Massey University lecturer David Belgrave told Mike Hosking it's not indicative of this Government's views on the military.

"Squeezing a bit of money out of day-to-day spending is quite different from the billions of dollars they are going to need to spend upgrading military equipment over the next ten years." 

He says we need to know how much funding will be cut, before we worry.

"If we started to deferring the major upgrades we need to spend, especially 

https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/david-belgrave-defence-force-faces-spending-cuts-to-focus-on-wellbeing-of-kiwis/

 

This is the biggest fucken crock of shit I have heard in a while. "lift the wellbeing of New Zealanders". But hey we will get votes, and the Greenies will love us. Personally, fuck off with your fucken bull shit, what a load of PC mamby-pamby bull shit.

Takes money from defence and security of the whole nation, which is protecting your country, protecting our shipping lanes, protecting your freedoms and I use the term freedoms sparingly as governments have been slowly stripping those as well and protecting our EEZ, Search and Rescue and come will come to your aid in a disaster.

They don't just defend, they are the same troops that put their lives on the line so "you" don't have to (and I am talking to the politicians here) the same troops that help you with HADR, both here and abroad, the same troops that are currently in Australia helping the ADF with the bush fires and recovery, the same troops that helped Kaikoura and Christchurch after earthquakes.  the troops that Helped Fiji and Samoa in recent years the Cyclon recovery... The same troops that you have sent to East Timor, Bougainville, and Afganistan. The same troops you sent to White Island...

The same troops that are willing to put their lives on the line for you... so you can live your mighty high life, keeping your freedoms and this is how you respect them with more defence cutbacks. Fuck you.

Basically put, and another word, more handouts to those that just know how to put their hand up to get free money when they don't deserve it? (and I know that will piss a lot of people off that I said that but guess what I don't care read the slogan of the site ) While the working class pay for it and get nothing and our defence force suffer for it.

I have an idea start getting the 10billion dollars back from the student loans... actually checking my figures... actually closer to 15 Billion that is 4 times more than our annual defence budget... and most of that is not being paid back... what the hell? And you are worried about getting few extra 100,000 dollars here and there in cut backs. If the student gets a loan then it needs to be paid back before allowed to leave the country. Most of these loans will probably end up being wiped. And that will piss me off more than these cutbacks.

In the financial year 2016/17 the government lost $19.9 million of student loan debt because of bankruptcy. In the financial year 2017/18 the amount was $32.2 million. This is not financially feasible and needs to be stopped.

I find it absolutely disgusting that any government or politician will use cutbacks on defence as a premise for gaining more votes.

Security is part of that well being. It is the one thing the Government has to... and I will say again "has to" spend money and that is defence of the country. What these ill-informed politicians with their deep-seated sea blindness are saying is that the security of our country is not part of "well being". Well I hate to break the news to these politicians, it is.

I say "has to" because as sad as this will sound,  it is the one thing we can not do privately. I can get private health, education, private insurance, and well being, hell I am doing that now... but, I want my taxes spent on the one thing I cannot do and that is defence of the country. It is the one thing that the government "HAS TO" spend one on.



More defence cutbacks, well I no longer feel safe in my own country? 

Now don't get me wrong, here spending on education and the health system is good, but not at the expense of defense, because if you are not careful you won't have anything to defend. The average person (I have spoken to) wants more money spent on defence, not cutbacks. Goes to show that the politicians don't fully understand their people or their electorate or the average person in New Zealand. Most politicians, actually I will rephrase that all politicians are so short-sighted that even spec savers can not save them, all they think about is their next election and not the long term big picture. 

In the unstable world we now live in, is nothing like it was even 15 years ago, now is not the time to making any cutbacks on defence, now is the time to be increasing the defence budget. We already spend way less roughly than most other western nations roughly 1.1% of GDP and it needs to be bought up to at least 2%. 

One of the side effects of cutbacks will be and it will hit us further down the track, will be the morale of the troops will drop, and that is guaranteed.  The more cutbacks you have the more the morale will drop. It is just gut-wrenching to the troops. The troops will start thinking, what is the point? Obviously the government are not taking defence seriously so why should I bother. And they will start looking at the civilian job market. It has happened in the past and will happen again.

I am going say it here New Zealand will be caught out with our pants down when shit hits the fan and it is slowly building up ... many people can see it and many have been giving warnings, but it is all falling on deaf ears.

More defence cutbacks, well I no longer feel safe in my own country? 

It is also an election year so it is mainly to get votes. Well, they probably just lost 30,000 votes from those currently in the defence force and those that previously served, "snap, just like that" Probably more... I find it absolutely disgusting that any government or politician will use cutbacks on defence as a premise for gaining more votes and this is all this is.

It is an age-old argument, build the god damn fence at the top of the cliff instead of just putting the ambulance at the bottom of it.  The sad thing is most of the politicians don't take defence serious at all and they are not looking at the big picture and only looking to the next election.

What the hell is well being, me being well being is not you being well being it is a very broad term, so you taking money from the NZDF is not well being for them as the morale will drop, and make it harder for the NZDF to do their job. So it is very subjective?

On a final note, wasn't the government saying they had a surplus of 7.5 billions of dollars only last year... where has all that gone? No GST cuts, Not Tax breaks, who the fuck got that money and where was that spent on.



The fun thing about this article is, if it was on Facebook... I would have typed it, I would have read it, and then hovered over the send button and then pushed delete... BUT... but this is my website so guess what? Here we are... However, I would like to point out that this article is just me venting... and I will probably type up another one after I have cooled down bit and thought about things. (probably not)

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