NZDF General discussion thread

[cdxbow]

It looks like we might be looking at joining AUKUS. Apparently, the door is open.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

It would be interesting to see where we might contribute, Cyber and Quantum Computing are areas that i agree we should be investing in. I would be interested in what other areas people see an opportunity in.

Does anyone have a date for the defense assessment to be released?

The pressure and need for decisions to be made seems to be increasing significantly for our leaders, along with an increase in investment.

Space is another area. You have Rocket labs, a very successful small satellite launch provider. Being able to launch small military satellites at short notice would be very useful capability. I don't now what else space related you have in NZ but that capability alone is worth a lot.

There is an admirer in Australia for NZ defense policies, so perhaps you should not feel so bad about the decrepit state of NZDF. Someone thinks it's the gold standard. The Greens senator, Jordon Steele-John pointed to New Zealand’s lightly armed defence force as the “gold standard” Australia should aspire to, saying the nation needed a “readily deployable and highly mobile force that is commensurate with our size and location”. Bill Shorten blasts Greens’ call for national security cuts, rules out power-sharing deal (smh.com.au)

We have seen with Covid19 how ignorance, stupidity and magical thinking becomes very dangerous (anti-vax, C19 denial, refusal to take precautions, snake oil cures etc) when confronted with a challenge in the real world. Jordon Steele-John may be the same, he is living in a fantasy land that seems to utterly ignore the last decade. Fortunately in Oz this is an extreme position, one which I think the Greens will have to modify to gain more votes.

 

[Redlands18]

Space is another area. You have Rocket labs, a very successful small satellite launch provider. Being able to launch small military satellites at short notice would be very useful capability. I don't now what else space related you have in NZ but that capability alone is worth a lot.

There is an admirer in Australia for NZ defense policies, so perhaps you should not feel so bad about the decrepit state of NZDF. Someone thinks it's the gold standard. The Greens senator, Jordon Steele-John pointed to New Zealand’s lightly armed defence force as the “gold standard” Australia should aspire to, saying the nation needed a “readily deployable and highly mobile force that is commensurate with our size and location”. Bill Shorten blasts Greens’ call for national security cuts, rules out power-sharing deal (smh.com.au)

We have seen with Covid19 how ignorance, stupidity and magical thinking becomes very dangerous (anti-vax, C19 denial, refusal to take precautions, snake oil cures etc) when confronted with a challenge in the real world. Jordon Steele-John may be the same, he is living in a fantasy land that seems to utterly ignore the last decade. Fortunately in Oz this is an extreme position, one which I think the Greens will have to modify to gain more votes.

I would love to ask the NZG, how many New Zealanders have been saved by Nuclear Medicine over the years, does NZ export Medical Isotopes created at Lucas Heights? Same sort of questions for Greenies. How many people have died Worldwide as a result of Reactor failures and how many have been saved by the work done at places like Lucas Heights?

 

[ngatimozart]

It looks like we might be looking at joining AUKUS. Apparently, the door is open.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

It would be interesting to see where we might contribute, Cyber and Quantum Computing are areas that i agree we should be investing in. I would be interested in what other areas people see an opportunity in.

Does anyone have a date for the defense assessment to be released?

The pressure and need for decisions to be made seems to be increasing significantly for our leaders, along with an increase in investment.

I am of the opinion that NZ CANNOT CHERRY PICK what parts of the AUKUS Pact that it likes and ignores the parts it doesn't agree with. It's either all in or stay out. There's no half measures. I would also have NZ sign an agreement that it will at a bare minimum expend 2% GDP upon defence per annum and this agreement will be strictly enforced to ensure no backsliding by stingy tight arsed Kiwi pollies.

Space is another area. You have Rocket labs, a very successful small satellite launch provider. Being able to launch small military satellites at short notice would be very useful capability. I don't now what else space related you have in NZ but that capability alone is worth a lot.

Yes Rocket Lab are doing real well and there are some others who look promising as well. There is approval for a second launch complex to be built just outside of Christchurch on the Kaitorete Spit at Te Waihora - Lake Ellesmere. There is the large space radar in Central Otago used for tracking space junk, the satellite communications and tracking facility in Southland just outside of Invercargill, the Dutch - Kiwi Space Plane company Dawn that operates out of Christchurch and Oamaru, various Cubesat companies in Auckland and Christchurch etc. A lot of space related startups are happening here. It will be interesting to see how many last the distance. What does need to happen with them is the government to be an Angel investor to ensure that these companies stay here and benefit NZ.

There is an admirer in Australia for NZ defense policies, so perhaps you should not feel so bad about the decrepit state of NZDF. Someone thinks it's the gold standard. The Greens senator, Jordon Steele-John pointed to New Zealand’s lightly armed defence force as the “gold standard” Australia should aspire to, saying the nation needed a “readily deployable and highly mobile force that is commensurate with our size and location”. Bill Shorten blasts Greens’ call for national security cuts, rules out power-sharing deal (smh.com.au)

The Greens and defence: face palm. If you want some light entertainment try reading the NZ Green Party defence policy.

We have seen with Covid19 how ignorance, stupidity and magical thinking becomes very dangerous (anti-vax, C19 denial, refusal to take precautions, snake oil cures etc) when confronted with a challenge in the real world. Jordon Steele-John may be the same, he is living in a fantasy land that seems to utterly ignore the last decade. Fortunately in Oz this is an extreme position, one which I think the Greens will have to modify to gain more votes.

Antivaxxers, pollies and stupidity all in the same sentence

I would love to ask the NZG, how many New Zealanders have been saved by Nuclear Medicine over the years, does NZ export Medical Isotopes created at Lucas Heights? Same sort of questions for Greenies. How many people have died Worldwide as a result of Reactor failures and how many have been saved by the work done at places like Lucas Heights?

That wouldn't compute. It'd be like trying to find a pollie that doesn't lie. It's something that the rabid anti nukers conveniently forget. It is my contention that the anti nuke crusade was an anti American crusade rather than an anti nuke one. The anti nukers certainly weren't out in force when PRC or French ships visited NZ ports. That says a lot.

A correction NZ doesn't export medical isotypes from the Lucas Heights reactor. If we obtain them from there we would be importing them.

 

[Gracie1234]

I agree with your statement Ngati. I was going to add that i expect there would be a price to be inside the tent, and a min 2% GDP funding could be it. We are not the economic basket case we once were, there are no excuses only choices.
I watched a similar conversation from a Canadian perspective.
In short, NZ will need to choose who it wants to be, it can not afford to not make a choice and there will be consequences either way.

 

[Redlands18]

I would love to ask the NZG, how many New Zealanders have been saved by Nuclear Medicine over the years, does NZ export Medical Isotopes created at Lucas Heights? Same sort of questions for Greenies. How many people have died Worldwide as a result of Reactor failures and how many have been saved by the work done at places like Lucas Heights?

NZ Import Isotopes of Course, not Export, thanks @ngatimozart

 

[MrConservative]

New Zealand has a fascinating nuclear history going back to Sir Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford and a student of his at the Cavandish lab that became the head of the DSIR during WW2 Dr. Ernest Marsden, recruited young New Zealand scientists for the British Commonwealth contribution for the Manhattan and Montreal Projects. There was also a small medical research nuclear facility for the production of isotapes at Greenfields in Lower Hutt. There was post war a small group of highly qualified nuclear scientists in New Zealand who returned following this work, and on a couple of occasions building nuclear power stations in New Zealand were a serious consideration. There were post-war geo-graphical surveys to find Uranium and Thorium. They found plenty of Thorium and some Uranium on the West Coast of the South Island. It was not until the French nuclear testing in the early 1970's that New Zealand began on the path of being anti-nuclear.

“It is safe to say that within about half a century electricity from nuclear sources
will be supplied to houses and small industries under much the same conditions as the
present water supply.”
Ernest Marsden, June 1955

“... nations may in the future be rated as advanced or backward, developed
or under-developed, according to their success in applying atomic energy to the
solution of their problems.”
External Affairs, 14 June 1957

Quoted in: Priestley, Rebecca; New Zealandʼs Nuclear and Radiation History to 1987, University of Canterbury Doctoral Thesis, 2010.

 

[MrConservative]

It is my contention that the anti nuke crusade was an anti American crusade rather than an anti nuke one.

Well supported by operatives from the Soviet bloc embassy's during that time.

 

[Shanesworld]

Space is another area. You have Rocket labs, a very successful small satellite launch provider. Being able to launch small military satellites at short notice would be very useful capability. I don't now what else space related you have in NZ but that capability alone is worth a lot.

There is an admirer in Australia for NZ defense policies, so perhaps you should not feel so bad about the decrepit state of NZDF. Someone thinks it's the gold standard. The Greens senator, Jordon Steele-John pointed to New Zealand’s lightly armed defence force as the “gold standard” Australia should aspire to, saying the nation needed a “readily deployable and highly mobile force that is commensurate with our size and location”. Bill Shorten blasts Greens’ call for national security cuts, rules out power-sharing deal (smh.com.au)

We have seen with Covid19 how ignorance, stupidity and magical thinking becomes very dangerous (anti-vax, C19 denial, refusal to take precautions, snake oil cures etc) when confronted with a challenge in the real world. Jordon Steele-John may be the same, he is living in a fantasy land that seems to utterly ignore the last decade. Fortunately in Oz this is an extreme position, one which I think the Greens will have to modify to gain more votes.

We'd be hard pressed to keep a combat capable reinforced company in the field.
He should try again. Or never again.

New Zealand has a fascinating nuclear history going back to Sir Ernest Rutherford. Rutherford and a student of his at the Cavandish lab that became the head of the DSIR during WW2 Dr. Ernest Marsden, recruited young New Zealand scientists for the British Commonwealth contribution for the Manhattan and Montreal Projects. There was also a small medical research nuclear facility for the production of isotapes at Greenfields in Lower Hutt. There was post war a small group of highly qualified nuclear scientists in New Zealand who returned following this work, and on a couple of occasions building nuclear power stations in New Zealand were a serious consideration. There were post-war geo-graphical surveys to find Uranium and Thorium. They found plenty of Thorium and some Uranium on the West Coast of the South Island. It was not until the French nuclear testing in the early 1970's that New Zealand began on the path of being anti-nuclear.

“It is safe to say that within about half a century electricity from nuclear sources
will be supplied to houses and small industries under much the same conditions as the
present water supply.”
Ernest Marsden, June 1955

“... nations may in the future be rated as advanced or backward, developed
or under-developed, according to their success in applying atomic energy to the
solution of their problems.”
External Affairs, 14 June 1957

Quoted in: Priestley, Rebecca; New Zealandʼs Nuclear and Radiation History to 1987, University of Canterbury Doctoral Thesis, 2010.

Greenfields or Gracefield? I know taita was involved in alot of that in the 60s onwards.

 

[MrConservative]

Greenfields or Gracefield? I know taita was involved in alot of that in the 60s onwards.

Yeah Gracefields that's it. Cannot completely rely on my geriatric memory or geography much these days.

 

[kiwi in exile]

It is my contention that the anti nuke crusade was an anti American crusade rather than an anti nuke one. The anti nukers certainly weren't out in force when PRC or French ships visited NZ ports. That says a lot.

Except for when we sent 2 frigates to Mururoa in 1973. that also said a lot.

 

[Gooey]

Meanwhile, ex PM Clark seems upset:
... Clark also raised concerns about changing the original mandate of the Five Eyes security arrangement ... Clark said it used to be a “behind-the-scenes intelligence exchange” but had become a tool for power houses like the US to influence other countries. “This is a huge threat to New Zealand’s foreign policy. [Five Eyes] shouldn’t be used like that,” Clark said. She was also critical of Aukus – a security pact between Australia, the US and the UK for the Indo-Pacifc region. Clark said the fact that this arrangement did not include any countries in the Indo-Pacific region had offended “everybody”. “That’s a club you definitely don’t want to be in.”

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

FVEY is a threat to NZ foreign policy. I would have thought that our entirely inadequate NZDF is a bigger threat to the reputation of our foreign policy, let along concepts like soft power, hard power, and contributing to the defence of South Pacific or Australia. Note, I did not personalise this by raising her 'acts' WRT RNZAF F-16s.
I'd punt that Clark is reacting to High Commissioner Kings press yesterday. That, itself, seemed like an opportunity to bark like a dog without having to do anything. That is, 'we're doing Cyber now' without having to spend up.
Reka! (sweet)

 

[Nighthawk.NZ]

Meanwhile, ex PM Clark seems upset:
... Clark also raised concerns about changing the original mandate of the Five Eyes security arrangement ... Clark said it used to be a “behind-the-scenes intelligence exchange” but had become a tool for power houses like the US to influence other countries. “This is a huge threat to New Zealand’s foreign policy. [Five Eyes] shouldn’t be used like that,” Clark said.

Ummm that is why you have intelligence gathering in the first place... so you can influence other countries...

 

[John Fedup]

Meanwhile, ex PM Clark seems upset:
... Clark also raised concerns about changing the original mandate of the Five Eyes security arrangement ... Clark said it used to be a “behind-the-scenes intelligence exchange” but had become a tool for power houses like the US to influence other countries. “This is a huge threat to New Zealand’s foreign policy. [Five Eyes] shouldn’t be used like that,” Clark said. She was also critical of Aukus – a security pact between Australia, the US and the UK for the Indo-Pacifc region. Clark said the fact that this arrangement did not include any countries in the Indo-Pacific region had offended “everybody”. “That’s a club you definitely don’t want to be in.”

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

FVEY is a threat to NZ foreign policy. I would have thought that our entirely inadequate NZDF is a bigger threat to the reputation of our foreign policy, let along concepts like soft power, hard power, and contributing to the defence of South Pacific or Australia. Note, I did not personalise this by raising her 'acts' WRT RNZAF F-16s.
I'd punt that Clark is reacting to High Commissioner Kings press yesterday. That, itself, seemed like an opportunity to bark like a dog without having to do anything. That is, 'we're doing Cyber now' without having to spend up.
Reka! (sweet)

What a mutt she is. It is little comfort to me to realize a significant portion of the NZ electorate is just as brain-dead as the Canadian electorate. Kind of explains why only three FVEY countries are in AUKUS.

 

[spoz]

It looks like we might be looking at joining AUKUS. Apparently, the door is open.

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

It would be interesting to see where we might contribute, Cyber and Quantum Computing are areas that i agree we should be investing in. I would be interested in what other areas people see an opportunity in.

Does anyone have a date for the defense assessment to be released?

The pressure and need for decisions to be made seems to be increasing significantly for our leaders, along with an increase in investment.

In any case, NZ can’t elbow it’s way in, it has wait to be invited. From this side of the ditch that is not looking particularly likely; Aust and the UK have been long term and essentially unwavering supporters of the US including of its nuclear strategy. That would seem to be a prime requirement for membership; and one which doesn’t exactly describe NZ.

 

[Gibbo]

In any case, NZ can’t elbow it’s way in, it has wait to be invited. From this side of the ditch that is not looking particularly likely; Aust and the UK have been long term and essentially unwavering supporters of the US including of its nuclear strategy. That would seem to be a prime requirement for membership; and one which doesn’t exactly describe NZ.

Yes far from NZ looking to join AUKUS it is little more than a puff piece of diplomacy whereby NZ hopes to invoke an invitation to come along, join the AUKUS party on the periphery & in NZ's mind at least, pick & choose the yummy bits from the menu but not expecting to pay for the meal!

 

[MrConservative]

I think it is interesting that Dame Annette King a former Deputy Leader of the NZ Labour party and current High Commissioner in Canberra, is the one who has come out with this proposal. She would not be talking about this without a nod from Wellington - however she is just as much as influential on the current Leadership than Helen Clark if not more so I have been informed. Jacindarella knows Annette King much more than Clark as Clark went off to the UN about the time that Cindy arrived as a young list MP. King is still an insider-confidant where as Clark is not as influential these days within the 9th floor as some people think (There can't be two Queens in a Hive was one view I have heard). However I do think that the SMH reporter has leaped to some bad assumptions.

Note that Ms King specifically said:

“It’s been made clear to us that other countries are going to be welcome to be involved in other parts of the architecture”

UK CDS General Sir Nick Carter, has evidently made comments with respect to Japan, NZ and Canada on AUKUS as well as the UK joining the QUAD, however I believe there is probably more sense in NZ joining the more broader QUAD Defence relationship along with Canada and the United Kingdom and leave AUKUS to current three and the core Submarine capability. Cyber, AI and those other aspects of the AUKUS relationship are to a certain extent dealt with under the technical protocols of FVEYS.

 

[John Fedup]

I think it is interesting that Dame Annette King a former Deputy Leader of the NZ Labour party and current High Commissioner in Canberra, is the one who has come out with this proposal. She would not be talking about this without a nod from Wellington - however she is just as much as influential on the current Leadership than Helen Clark if not more so I have been informed. Jacindarella knows Annette King much more than Clark as Clark went off to the UN about the time that Cindy arrived as a young list MP. King is still an insider-confidant where as Clark is not as influential these days within the 9th floor as some people think (There can't be two Queens in a Hive was one view I have heard). However I do think that the SMH reporter has leaped to some bad assumptions.

Note that Ms King specifically said:

“It’s been made clear to us that other countries are going to be welcome to be involved in other parts of the architecture”

UK CDS General Sir Nick Carter, has evidently made comments with respect to Japan, NZ and Canada on AUKUS as well as the UK joining the QUAD, however I believe there is probably more sense in NZ joining the more broader QUAD Defence relationship along with Canada and the United Kingdom and leave AUKUS to current three and the core Submarine capability. Cyber, AI and those other aspects of the AUKUS relationship are to a certain extent dealt with under the technical protocols of FVEYS.

QUAD for Canada is about as likely as AUKUS, zero. Besides, Canada offers SFA for QUAD and even less for AUKUS. FVEY contribution isn’t exactly significant either.

 

[MrConservative]

QUAD for Canada is about as likely as AUKUS, zero. Besides, Canada offers SFA for QUAD and even less for AUKUS. FVEY contribution isn’t exactly significant either.

Canada does have NATO which gives it a political opt out clause of being too busy with that, but to a certain extent Canada will need to look to its West over the coming decades and away from an Atlantic centric view - if it wants to follow the money. You will not have Justin in charge forever nor we Jacindarella, so don't be too close minded about change or too down on Canada's abilities. Canada's problem is that psychologically it thinks and feels smaller than what it is because of its Superpower neighbour. Canada in a way is a bit of a sleeping Giant. Its population is 1 Australia plus 3 New Zealands, it is a G7 country after all.

New Zealand only has FVEY's.

 

[Nighthawk.NZ]

If NZ really wants to get in on the game of "Quantum Computing" and "Cyber Defenses" etc... we would better off to (and would be easier to) start a new collective group and call it "Behind the 8 ball". Basically forget about AUKUS. Since in general it is all based around the nuclear submarine program.

Make this new collective around Cyber Security, Quantum Computing, other sciences and technologies in the field... ie; communications... so throw in Space ie; Rocket Lab, Dawn Aerospace, and a few other aerospace company's for good measure.

 

[Gracie1234]

I think a lot of the benefit for NZ joining AUKUS is not just defense capability, AI, Cyber, Quantum Computing, Space etc are all duel use technologies and are the future of technology innovation across the board. This will result in real business opportunities. In my mind that might be another reason why NZ has signaled that it is interested in joining. The upside is huge. Growth in these will also move us further away from being Agriculture Economically dependant.