The navy will not have war-making frigates until at least the end of 2021, as a troubled upgrade of the two combat vessels continues.
Defence chief Air Marshal Kevin Short told a parliamentary select committee on Thursday that he was uncertain whether HMNZS Te Kaha would be fully operational by the end of 2021, having returned from being upgraded in Canada in December 2020.
The two-decades-old Te Kaha and HMNZS Te Mana, the Navy’s chief combat vessels, have been undergoing weapons and communications upgrades first approved by the government in 2014. The project was first budgeted at $446m, before an additional $148m was approved in 2017 to cover increasing costs.
Victoria University strategic studies professor Robert Ayson said the unavailability of the frigates had limited New Zealand's ability to run anti-piracy operations, monitor sea lanes, and participate in exercises with military partners.
Short on Thursday said that specialists including contractors from Lockheed Martin – which won the contract to upgrade the vessels – were on board Te Kaha readying tests of its new systems.
- A few more photo's of HMNZS Te Kaha back at sea.
- HMNZS Te Kaha
- HMNZS Te Kaha - New Mast
- HMNZS Te Kaha last weekend in Canada.
“I'm not sure at this stage, because it is early days, if they'll have full operational readiness by the end of the year. But there will be, as you can imagine, a number of tasks that can be undertaken before the end of this year,” he said.
Te Kaha was involved in the search for a yacht in distress last week.
The industrial refit of Te Mana had finished in Canada, and it would now be tested at sea before returning to New Zealand early in 2022.
Short said the lack of frigates meant there was a limitation to the “high-end risk areas” or high-level conflict the navy could operate in.
“What we've done in recent times is look at where we can contribute and for instance if there's a maritime issue we would put up a P3K [Orion aircraft] to do some of the surface surveillance tasks.
“And that's been accepted by our friends and allies as contributing. And so we've looked at alternatives, while we have frigates out of service.” Ayson said that fortunately there had not been a high number of military operations happening in the past couple of years.
“If we were in a situation where the United States and Australia were much busier in the Middle East, for example, we would see the gap.
“The Government certainly intended for the frigates to be ready much quicker ... That also is an issue."
The frigates were the navy's most capable surface combat vessels, and were useful in “more distant theatres” in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, North Asia, and the Middle East, Ayson said.
He said the years without operational frigates would raise questions within the government, particularly within Treasury, about whether such vessels were truly needed or required replacing in the future, as the Cabinet pushed on with a “pretty ambitious” defence capability plan.
