New equipment best way to retain soldiers says Goff

New equipment - not a big pay rise - is what Defence Minister Phil Goff believes will help to solve the military's chronic retention problem.

Mr Goff was in Palmerston North this week to visit the Army exercise Silver Warrior and see the new light armoured vehicles (LAVs) in action.

The LAVs were a big commitment in expenditure, he said.

"But if we are going to put the lives of New Zealand Defence Force personnel at risk in peacekeeping and in areas where there is a high level of operational risk, then we must equip them appropriately."

When he was in East Timor a few years ago, he saw the old M113 armoured personnel carriers (now replaced by the LAVs) lined up in a row and asked if it was a defensive formation.

"They said, 'No, those are the ones that have broken down'."

Giving the armed forces modern equipment such as the LAVs and the proposed NH90 helicopters would help morale, he said.

The Defence Force is losing numbers across the board. The Army's annual attrition rate is about 18 per cent.

Mr Goff said low unemployment was also making it harder to recruit, but it was harder in the 1990s when antiquated equipment and slashed expenditure resulted in a rundown Defence Force.

"Those things impact on morale."

Retention problems have often been blamed on low wages, but Mr Goff deflected the issue, saying there is "a mixture of things. Anyone who has a trade and technical skill in the armed forces is in huge demand in the rest of the economy and therefore we get raided."

But as long as they stayed in New Zealand, it could be said the Defence Force did a good job training people for the economy, he said.

"But we need them for ourselves. We are looking at recruiting locally and from places like the UK."

There had been redundancies from the Royal Air Force, personnel with technical skills that New Zealand could use, Mr Goff said.

Retention was a continuing problem that would not be solved overnight, but the defence sustainability initiative - $4.6 billion announced in this year's budget - tackled the problem head-on, he said.

"Most of the $4.6 billion is personnel. Only about $200 or $300 million is capital in that."

The additional spending would increase staff numbers by 1200 across the board, improve managerial capabilities, and cover a wage rise each year.

- NZPA