Defence and fighters

NZ has been brought into the real world by the Christchurch massacre which has left the NZ Police Force significantly under resourced with the Labour Government doing nothing about that permanent situation thus far.

Anzac Day has reminded me that about 20 years ago the Labour Government abolished our RNZAF Strike Force. In other words we have no fighter aircraft to even handle such things as a terrorist pilot deciding to fly his aircraft into a building, a stadium or whatever. To me this is absolutely shameful and even worse we are not pulling our weight among our allies, particularly Australia. They must think we are bludgers in respect of this aspect of our defence force.

Singapore which has about the same population as NZ has around seven fighter squadrons and recently offered to base one in NZ. That would have been sensible but it would have also highlighted NZ's poor judgement.

Whilst it will cost megabucks for NZ to reinstate a strike air force and would be a political risk for the party which promoted such a move, it does need doing.

Are we so naïve that we think there will be no more wars? We need to support our military better.

Bill Capamagian, Tauranga

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