Anzac Day: Do we need to redefine what constitutes a veteran in New Zealand? - The Front Page

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown lays a wreath at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Anzac Day dawn service 2023. Photo / Greg Bowker

As New Zealand takes the day to recognise our veterans, there are concerns some are missing out on recognition for their services.

For several years, Veteran Affairs has been offering the Veteran Independence Program as a support system for all veterans in New Zealand.

However, recent changes to delays in processing claims now mean that those who are not officially classed as veterans will no longer be eligible.

Speaking to The Front Page, the Herald’s daily news podcast, senior NZ Herald writer David Fisher said that the definition of a veteran is a “real sticking point” for the wider community.

“For example, RSA or veteran support groups such as No Duff, they take a veteran to be anyone that has served in or with NZDF.

“For Veterans Affairs itself to provide support, there’s a number of hurdles that you have to go through, and for some people, it feels like you’re trying to pass a camel through the eye of subsequent needles.”

One of those hurdles is that you have to have served in an operational deployment, which generally is an offshore mission that has been approved by the Minister of Defence.

Fisher said that those on those missions get veteran affairs support, while those who weren’t do not.

“NZDF has been deployed to assist with various disaster zones across the Pacific. Some of those disaster zones have been recognised as operational deployments. Some of them have not been recognised as operational deployments. When you come down to the detail of it, there’s not necessarily anything significantly different between the two types of deployments. It’s just that one of them has had the ministerial tick.”

Fisher said there is a third group for those who have served prior to 1974, which was decided after the Veteran Support Act came into effect in 2014, which he said created a two-tier system.

“Those that served prior to 1974 were considered veterans regardless, and those post-1974 were in this sort of sorting gate environment, where those with operational service that was recognised were greenlit as veterans and those that didn’t have that particular service were not.”

Fisher said that there is room for New Zealand to be introspective about how we manage veterans and that many recommendations are outstanding from a 2018 inquiry into the issue.

Listen to the full episode for more on what’s being changed for veterans, and how we can better recognise them as a country.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.