Just a Navy question

[Dave Homewood]

This is a quote from Wikipedia's page on the RNZN:

"Project Protector was the Ministry of Defence acquisition project to acquire one multi-role vessel, HMNZS Canterbury (L421), two Protector class offshore patrol vessels, and four Protector-class inshore patrol vessels, to be operated by the RNZN. While operated by the Navy, the vessels are designed to conduct military tasks and additionally to conduct tasks for and with New Zealand Customs, the Department of Conservation, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Fisheries, the Maritime Safety Authority of New Zealand and the New Zealand Police."

I was wondering with all those perceived Government departments making use of these ships, in the purchase process do each of those departmentsallocate funds from their operating budgets towards the actual costs? Or does the entire budget come from Ministry of Defence funding alone, and they then allow other departments to pay for their services on a case by case basis?

I guess the same could be asked about RNZAF aircraft too, do other departments and Ministries such as Police, Customs, DOC etc contribute to the purcase of new helicopters, etc?

[ErrolC]

Good question. The Maritime NZ Annual report doesn't address it explicitly. but I would expect that they pay some sort of charge to the RNZAF to use the Orions, for instance. If they were free for them to use, then things get a bit daft if there is a inshore search requirement. Maybe there is something in the MoD Annual Report?

[kiwithrottlejockey]

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole lot was charged to the Defence vote.

Governments have a habit of not being very honest when it comes to costings.

Remember the old government departments that used to train huge numbers of apprentices in various trades? There was the old Post Office (formerly known as Post & Telegraph Office), the Ministry of Works, New Zealand Electricity Department, New Zealand Government Railways, and many more.

Consecutive governments used to love dragging up figures supposedly showing the huge drain on government funds of running those big departments. But what they weren't honest enough to be up front with was the fact that in addition to their core functions, all of those big departments were huge trade & professional training organisations. Take the old New Zealand Government Railways Department as an example. They used to train many many times the number of apprentices in virtually all trades than the number of tradesmen they needed themselves. Most of those apprentices were released to private enterprise once their training was completed and they were fully qualified. In a similar manner, they used to pay to train a huge number of engineers (both civil and mechanical), surveyers, architects, and many other professionals. Most of them were simply released to private enterprise once they were qualified.

However, in each case, respective governments used to dishonestly dump all those training costs onto the very government departments they were directing to train people in all of those trades and professions. Meanwhile, private enterprise sponged off the taxpayers by getting trained staff without having to pay for it themselves, while the big government departments got the bad press for supposedly running at huge loses.

It's also interesting that since all of those government departments stopped being training organisations, many of the skills they used to train people in are now in dire short supply.

However, based on the past, it wouldn't surprise me if governments (past and present) are still loading costs in a similar manner onto Defence when those costs should be apportioned elsewhere.