The war against defence restructuring : a case study on changes leading to the current structure of New Zealand defence

Abstract

The changes that have impacted on New Zealand Defence over the past 20 years reflect five critical assumptions: first, that a country's defence policy and defence force ought to be appropriate to its place in the world; secondly, that in an environment where resources available to defence are limited, if its efficiency and effectiveness are to be optimised, a direct link between defence policy, priorities and funding is required; thirdly, that although the operational performance of a defence system does not lend itself easily to measurement by standard accounting or general commercial yardsticks, it is important to be able to relate expenditure decisions to results in some way; fourthly, that savings (or more capabilities per dollar) can be achieved from adopting a more business-like approach to defence management; and finally - based on New Zealand's experience - that efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved by marrying state sector reform principles and defence needs. This paper discusses a variety of events that impacted on New Zealand defence during the period from the election of the Lange Labour Government in 1984 to the election of the Clark Coalition Government in late 1999 and ends with a brief section on the positive and negative aspects of those changes in terms of defence structure, systems, processes, accountabilities, roles and relationships.