A personnel advocacy group says the Government\u2019s funding for defence capability is wasted if a market pay gap persists.<\/p>\n
The $12 billion Defence Capability Plan, unveiled last year, includes $9b of new spending over four years.<\/p>\n
It will take New Zealand\u2019s defence spending from just over 1% of GDP to more than 2%.<\/p>\n
The plan includes new strike capabilities, new maritime helicopters and VIP aircraft, drones and accommodation upgrades.<\/p>\n
Mission Homefront co-founder Erin Speedy said attrition would rise if personnel weren\u2019t properly compensated, and the NZDF would lose its best capability \u2013 its people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there\u2019s no one there to operate this equipment, these drones, these ships … all this brand new fancy gear, then it\u2019s just going to sit there gathering dust.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mission Homefront co-founder Erin Speedy says attrition will rise if personnel aren\u2019t properly compensated. Photo \/ Mission Homefront.<\/p>\n
In Budget 2026, the NZDF received $120 million over four years for pay and remuneration.<\/p>\n
She said this boost was a Band-Aid.<\/p>\n
Every few years, pay fell significantly behind the market rate, attrition spiked and the Government injected a one-off funding package.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at the last Government investment into pay in 2023, that was a $419m targeted pay package … that was meant to make a massive difference in bringing salaries up to at least 5% within market. And three years later, you know, we\u2019ve seen it drop significantly already by another 5%.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NZDF said it operated in a fiscally constrained environment, like other public sector agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe market pay gap within base salaries of NZDF personnel is undesirable. However, it should be noted the NZDF provides a number of benefits to our military personnel, including an additional payment on top of base salaries that recognises the unique nature of military service.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was also implementing Critical Continuity Payments as a targeted response to retain key ranks within a small number of critical trades and qualifications across the Royal New Zealand Navy, New Zealand Army and Royal New Zealand Air Force.<\/p>\n
It said it was working through how the $120m funding boost for remuneration would be allocated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NZDF will be prioritising increases to military and civilian pay tables.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defence Minister Chris Penk says work is being done to retain personnel. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Defence Minister Chris Penk said work was being done to retain personnel and address the historic underspending.<\/p>\n
That work included the $120m pay package, continuity payments for key personnel and investing up to $600m into modernising military homes.<\/p>\n
He said the Government wanted careers in the Defence Force to remain attractive, adding that attrition rates had stabilised and had halved since their 2023 peak of nearly 16%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s worth noting other benefits on offer to NZDF personnel include discounted financial advice like retirement planning and a mortgage brokering service, discounted insurances, access to Defence Force superannuation schemes, as well as the Defence Force providing medical and dental services for military personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lachlan Rennie is an Auckland-based multimedia journalist for Newstalk ZB covering science, defence, technology, community issues and general news. He previously studied journalism at the New Zealand Broadcasting School before joining NZME in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personnel advocacy group says the Government\u2019s funding for defence capability is wasted if a market pay gap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9055,45075,124,1403,28470,52000,38114,7494,647,111,43,139,69,2744,2341,544,131,223,8229,140046,14043,4276],"class_list":["post-551841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-9055","tag-12b","tag-could","tag-defence","tag-earning","tag-elsewhere","tag-gap","tag-less","tag-military","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pay","tag-personnel","tag-some","tag-than","tag-the","tag-they","tag-undermine","tag-upgrade","tag-why"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}