Political review: PM outflanks the top brass

By JOHN ARMSTRONG

Helen Clark pondered long and hard over who to appoint as her Defence Minister when Labour won the 1999 election.

She wanted someone who could push Labour's "Army-comes-first" restructuring of the military through an obstructive bureaucracy; someone who would not be captured by Defence Headquarters; someone who would ignore Ministry of Foreign Affairs advice.

As a member of the 1984-90 Lange-Palmer Government, Clark had watched Cold War-conditioned Defence Ministers buying expensive military hardware merely to satisfy New Zealand's allies.

As Deputy Prime Minister in 1989, she had the ignominious task of presiding over the purchase of two Anzac frigates.

That decision was forced on Wellington as Canberra's price for accepting New Zealand's anti-nuclear policy.

But it also had a lot to with propping up Australia's ship-building industry.

That was not going to happen again.

Clark contemplated giving the defence portfolio to the trusted Trevor Mallard. In the end, she settled on someone even tougher - herself.

Mark Burton technically holds the title. But he is her loyal batman, happy to do the donkey work. Clark is the de facto minister.

Knowing she would strike resistance from the defence establishment, she has bypassed it. Fearing the overhaul of policy would get bogged down, she has deployed officials from her Prime Minister's Department to drive much of the maritime surveillance, air combat and naval reviews, while getting the Treasury to inject the necessary fiscal realism.

Playing divide-and-rule, Clark has exploited inter-service rivalry, giving the Army twice as many light armoured vehicles as defence top brass recommended.

There was dismay at Defence HQ at the cabinet's reappointment of the unpopular Major-General Maurice Dodson as the Army's Chief of General Staff because it leaves him placed to become the big boss as the next Chief of Defence Force.

The unhappiness surfaced this week when seven retired defence chiefs challenged Clark to publish the policy reviews in draft form to allow proper public debate, rather than present a fait accompli next month with a 10-year defence package which is expected to scupper the Skyhawks.

The former generals argue that abolishing the Air Force's strike capability and slowly downgrading the Navy's combat strength will hamstring New Zealand's flexibility in responding to crises in conjunction with allies.

Clark's retort is that upgrading obsolete equipment in all three services in readiness for highly unlikely scenarios envisaged by the ex-generals would cost "an unacceptable mint."

But this tussle has a powerful undercurrent. The defence establishment sees Clark as some kind of emasculating isolationist peacenik. It is a charge to which her Labour-left past makes her vulnerable, and she is sensitive about it.

As is her increasing wont, Clark played the men not the ball. She labelled the former defence chiefs as "chums" of the National Party, who "sat as quiet as church mice" when National squeezed defence spending in the 1990s.

She noted National never permitted public input into its defence reviews.

In contrast, her Government had published a defence policy framework last June, along with analyses compiled by Foreign Affairs and the External Assessment Bureau, which is based in her department.

But these documents are little more than statements of the obvious. The framework runs to just 20 pages.

Clark also neglected to mention that last year's Australian defence white paper was open to public submissions. Instead, she has claimed a mandate for Government policy by constantly stressing it reflects the cross-party consensus established by Derek Quigley's 1999 select committee inquiry which left National in the minority.

She is seeking to reinforce that mandate by suggesting another parliamentary inquiry - but only after the package has been unveiled.

Next month's announcements will presumably kybosh the air combat capability. Maritime surveillance by the Orions will have a much greater civilian role, and the Navy will get a multi-role ship which could carry troops and their equipment and go overseas alongside the frigates, plus a couple of smaller vessels for patrolling New Zealand waters.

In short, the Air Force is the loser; the Navy is a winner, sort of.

Will Clark get away with it? Probably. The National Party, Act, defence specialists and newspaper editorials will bemoan the downgrading of the Air Force and warn of a backlash from Australia.

With most of the package flagged, though, the silence from Canberra and Washington is deafening. Clark's critics are in danger of crying wolf.

The bigger risk for Clark is the domestic fall-out. She confidently predicts it will be minimal. She claims most people were unaware we still had Skyhawks until the two recent crashes.

National's problem is that public interest in the finer points of defence policy is extremely low.

As one National MP laments, only a fifth of the population cares passionately about defence. His estimate appears generous.

Labour's emphasis on the Army also gets helpful justification from its soldiers being at the sharp end of defence policy through the East Timor deployment.

National, which foreshadowed the Army's re-equipment programme while in power, is annoyed Labour is now claiming the credit.

Arguing that the defence package spells the end of New Zealand's insurance policy by reneging on allies, National is using defence to establish one of its "points of difference" with Labour.

National is also using defence policy in its campaign to portray Clark as an autocratic Prime Minister who ignores public opinion and blasts her critics.

Even so, Clark has held the upper hand, reminding National MPs that their party took the "bludger's option" and cut defence spending as well as opting not to buy another Anzac-class frigate.

Clark has thus sought to create a perception that Labour is fixing years of neglect, while being realistic and responsible about what New Zealand can afford.

Her advantage is that it is easier to justify spending millions of dollars to cope with the here-and-now rather than committing billions on hardware to handle the hypothetical.

Her motives may be in question, but she is adopting a strict value-for-money approach to defence.

That is what the public probably wants. And, at last, it may be getting it.