Creaks and Cracks in the New Zealand Navy.

It's not very often when outsiders get to experience the Navy first hand and get an idea an understanding about what makes it tick. Aspiring Naval officer candidates are often fortunate enough to receive access to see the vessels, converse with many sailors and officers and sometimes even spend a few days on a ship too. Nothing of late however shows that the New Zealand Navy is heading anywhere but backwards. Why is that? It doesn't come down to one big failure, but rather a series of micro-failures which have sprung up recently. Not a single submarine in the entire fleet; Officers and Sailors regularly getting drunk and creating strife; an exiguous intake of ordinary sailors who were almost matched 1:1 by the Officers intake, not to mention the overused and overrated Offshore patrol vessels, trying to do a lot without really doing anything. How these failures (which aren't laborious fixes) still exist are embarrassing.

To start with. Not a single submarine in the fleet. Zero, nada, zilch. Surely with a vision of being the best small nation Navy in the world, the very best they can do to try follow through on this rather half-hearted promise is source ways of making their fleet more effective, versatile and adept. Tony Parr, the Chief of Navy still maintains that this goal is slowly being achieved. Having new in shore patrol vessels "provided the RNZN and respective government agencies with greater flexibility to monitor the exclusive economic zone and support the multi-agency approach to border and resource protection." Countless interviews, reports and speeches by Mr. Parr has failed to make a mention all about commissioning a submarine. Very embarrassing but not surprising. For comparison's sake, Australia has six submarines. (http://www.navy.gov.au/Current_Submarines)
Rear Admiral Jack Steer is none the better. Both he and Rear Admiral Parr are in cahoots together. Until one of them start collecting their pensions, don't expect to see any submarines anytime soon. Instead, expect to see sharp incremental additions of ridiculous Inshore and Off Shore Patrol vessels instead. Why New Zealand needs more of these boats remains a mystery to most people in the country, as well as most people in the Navy. It's probably the Senior Officers' way of shutting up the whinging Lieutenants who are craving a promotion (Most of the Commanding Officers of OPV's are Lieutenants).





Anybody who's served in the New Zealand Navy will be very familiar with the rather liberal attitudes many serving members have towards alcohol. Drink when you're on the sea, drink when you've docked overseas, drink when the weekend comes around. Last year a report came out that Commander John Butcher deliberately and willfully guzzled down glasses of wine until he was fully intoxicated; thankfully, he no longer steers the ship. Vanuatu Commander Maritime superintendent John Taleo said "It was very embarrassing. I nearly walked away from the table but I stayed. I think he must have been drinking on board before he came to the function." That's not surprising and nobody should see be surprised by it either. "A Defence Forces official said the navy took issues around alcohol consumption very seriously," but whoever said this can't be taken seriously in any sense. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10742606
A vast majority of Navy members are getting drunk regularly and if each drunken occasion was met with disciplinary actions, there would hardly be a Navy. An ensign studying at University regularly mentions all the peer pressure he receives to drink till you sink, particularly from a commander of one of the Fleet's ships. Here's the link, try and guess who it is. http://www.navy.mil.nz/visit-the-fleet/overview/default.htm

Whilst these two problems remain scary, the problem which is even more frightening than anything else is the lack of recruitment for sailors. And do not forget the horribly disproportionate intake ratio for officers to sailors. In the January intake, there were 30 people chosen to begin Junior Officer Common training. Not bad numbers at all and definitely filling the necessity for "new blood." Consider this though. There were 40 people who began Basic Common training and by the pictures shown on the Navy page, that number dropped down to around 34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/nznavy/sets/72157629250801365/
That is an intake ratio of nearly 1:1. Whatever sort of hands on management by these aspiring officers is going to fall flat and collapse. If more recruitment is needed, they ought to cut back on Officer numbers and certainly not sailor numbers. Sailors will always need to be more plentiful than Officers for a simple reason. Their arms and feet push the ship forward, the Officers are the brains and leaders who tell them how to do it. This is an issue which must be dealt to soon. Recruiting and blooding more common Sailors is imperative if they're planning to increase their fleet size and operational expertise. Whoever mismanaged the intake needs to go. Making a mistake this big will haunt the Navy down the track when there's one officer to squawk orders to every individual sailor.

Solutions do exist. Unfortunately the Navy is going about fixing these problems in the wrong way. Time is running out for them, it won't be long they're seen as a Joke Navy. It quite literally is sink or swim.