\u201cMany … did not trust the complaints process or believe anything would happen if they reported the behaviour,\u201d it said. This was similar to the situation several years ago.<\/p>\n
However, a new complaints process was being set up with a \u201cnew approach [that] removes the obligation of regular force personnel to report to their commanding officer any incidents of sexual harm\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another sticking point is that NZDF leaders had only a patchy view of what was going on, while some still exhibited limited understanding of what was unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders and personnel often called these [sexual] jokes and comments \u2018banter\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior women targeted<\/p>\n
Operation Respect was set up 10 years ago after reports of sexual assault and other harm amid a male-dominated culture in the forces. Audits will continue for 20 years.<\/p>\n
About 40% or 5000 personnel were surveyed in 2025 for the new audit.<\/p>\n
About 92% felt safe on the job but more than a thousand had witnessed harmful behaviour in the past year, and almost 700 or 14% reported experiencing bullying, harassment or discrimination.<\/p>\n
Of 5000 surveyed, 60 people reported unwanted sexual activity in the past year \u2013 half of those junior-rank women \u2013 and 280 said they experienced inappropriate sexual behaviour \u2013 100 of them junior-rank women.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough some groups have seen improvements, the overall prevalence of harmful behaviour in NZDF had not changed significantly,\u201d the audit said.<\/p>\n
Junior women and senior women officers both reported small drops in inappropriate sexual behaviour compared with 2022.<\/p>\n
Some bad culture persisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in some NZDF work environments, and women in particular, felt that demonstrating they were \u2018part of the team\u2019 or that they were resilient meant accepting derogatory behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unwanted sexual activity could include touching or anything non-consensual. Inappropriate behaviour could include suggestive jokes and sharing explicit images.<\/p>\n
Data from Military Police from 2020 to 2025 showed several offences of possessing and sending harmful sexual material images or video.<\/p>\n
Complaints progress<\/p>\n
The third audit says Defence has new policies, a new complaints resolution unit, and an implementation plan focused on prevention and leadership.<\/p>\n
Principal performance auditor Richard Towers told RNZ on Wednesday the 2025 audit period coincided with an executive leadership overhaul at Defence, and a force still depleted after high attrition that began with the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw that some of the work which we had expected to be completed and which we reported on in 2024 was still a work in progress,\u201d Towers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of that work is now either complete or near complete, so that\u2019s good. But we definitely saw and heard from others that there had been a bit of a loss of momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The audit made a near-repeat of three years ago that many people did not report harmful behaviour and those who did were often not satisfied with the response.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost survey respondents … did not report it to someone in authority\u201d \u2013 some because they felt no action was required, but a significant number \u201cfeared facing negative consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNZDF has recognised that,\u201d Towers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new Complaints Resolution Unit is one way that they can help start building trust with their workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time of the audit Defence was introducing policies to give people more control over how it handles their disclosures.<\/p>\n
The new complaints unit would be an organisation-wide entry point and \u201can avenue for raising complaints outside of their immediate chain of command\u201d.<\/p>\n
It was too early to say how that was going but the NZDF had said it would review it in 12 months, Towers said.<\/p>\n
NZDF last year replaced six sexual assault prevention and response advisers with nine specialist social workers and training staff, in a move to increase resources and add breadth to expertise.<\/p>\n
Limited view<\/p>\n
Some old-school culture persisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeaders and personnel still showed limited understanding of inappropriate sexual behaviour and bullying, harassment, and discrimination through the wide variation of what they described as acceptable behaviour,\u201d the audit said.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Acceptable behaviour\u2019 included sexual jokes, comments about someone\u2019s gender or sexuality, and racist comments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some personnel said they did not believe their team leader would intervene if someone was making dirty jokes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, many leaders we spoke with were unclear about what they should be doing to effectively respond to harmful behaviour.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey did not feel they had clear guidance on what the appropriate repercussions … should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Army demonstrated to the auditors the clearest signs it was dealing with these attitudes, Towers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw some really good things in Army and Air Force and Navy as well, and those leaders that we spoke to were really committed to the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just as you go through the different levels of command, we didn\u2019t get that as strong a sense of that leadership from the top … Army, we had a different story there, it was clear to everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slow and inconsistent<\/p>\n
Defence had acted on most of the recommendations from the 2024 audit, which followed the first by the Auditor-General in 2023, but was too slow and inconsistent.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome work … like the implementation plan and new policies, had taken longer to complete than expected,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
It still had holes in key data.<\/p>\n
A lack of overall oversight had persisted since the 2023 audit. \u201cNZDF needed to devote more time to governing\u201d the operation, today\u2019s report said.<\/p>\n
It added the health and safety committee the operation reported to was not thinking enough about whether it was working to cut harmful behaviour.<\/p>\n
Recent changes in NZDF structure could get leaders more engaged, it said.<\/p>\n
The report makes six recommendations including for more oversight and training.<\/p>\n
Data gaps<\/p>\n
Leaders had only a patchy view of what was going on.<\/p>\n
They lacked \u201crobust, regular and systematic\u201d information and analysis of what was driving harmful behaviour, who was impacted and the risks.<\/p>\n
Towers said there was data but it was scattered between, say the health and justice parts of Defence, and needed to be joined up.<\/p>\n
Defence responds<\/p>\n
The NZDF declined to be interviewed.<\/p>\n
In a statement, its chief people officer Jacinda Funnell said Defence acknowledged eliminating harmful behaviour required sustained effort and long-term culture change.<\/p>\n
It approved a new three-year plan this year as part of a professional conduct system aimed at improved prevention, leadership and reporting paths.<\/p>\n
Law changes were expected to improve the military justice system, alongside a new NZDF prosecution policy.<\/p>\n
It was testing \u201cbystander intervention training\u201d and reworking its anti-harassment \u201ccapability\u201d, Funnell said.<\/p>\n
It has a \u201cKeep it in the Green campaign\u201d to intervene on worrying behaviour early on.<\/p>\n
In addition, its estate rejuvenation has included work on making barracks safer for women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cMany … did not trust the complaints process or believe anything would happen if they reported the behaviour,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,41666,4500,1403,2893,11424,5760,11521,26588,5836,1446,22387,3025,111,43,139,69,90,193,3111,2341,30308,312,17703,49954,6100,43211,2248],"class_list":["post-580795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-audit","tag-changes","tag-defence","tag-fear","tag-finds","tag-force","tag-harm","tag-junior","tag-lost","tag-making","tag-momentum","tag-most","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-other","tag-out","tag-personnel","tag-protect","tag-says","tag-sexual","tag-speaking","tag-still","tag-suffering","tag-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580795","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=580795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}