Letters given to Ministry staff

Press, 22 August 1989, Page 5

Letters given to Ministry staff

All staff at Defence Headquarters received letters yesterday indicating the impact of the restructuring on their jobs.

About 300 civilian positions will be unchanged while at least 100 people in military functions will be reassigned to other jobs.

The Secretary of Defence, Dr Walker, said between 700 and 800 jobs, a mix of civilian and military, would require their holders to reapply for them, or involved jobs whose descriptions were being redefined.

But he said it would be wrong to say that jobs regarded as safe now would remain firm in the future.

The Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, told a post-Cabi-net news conference that Mr Tizard was looking into the question of further Ministry personnel cuts.

The new Ministry of Defence will function as a policy advisory, capital

procurement and audit organisation, separate from the Headquarters New Zealand Defence Force. The N.Z.D.F.’s main functions will include the command of all military activities and the management of finance and resources allocated to the forces. The Chief of Defence Staff, Lieutenant-General Mace, who will assume the position of Chief of Defence Force in the new structure, described the job as one in which he would hold both “the guns and the gold” in the restructured force.

The restructuring announcement was denounced by the Opposition spokesman on Defence, Mr Don McKinnon, who said it indicated the Government had rejected the findings of the Quigley review. -

"Clearly Defence has been able to convince the Government that the Quigley recommendations in regard to Defence Headquarters were wrong.”