Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaking to media on Tuesday. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon's office has confirmed a Defence Force plane will be available for his trip to Australia.
If he is on it, he will be breaking a commitment made in June. He says the 757 will allow him to bring a media delegation on a trip organised at short notice, and he has asked the Defence Force to come up with a range of other options for the longer term.
Luxon in June told reporters he would not travel internationally on Defence Force planes if he became the prime minister, criticising then-PM Chris Hipkins decision to do so when flying to China because a second backup plane was deployed in case the first broke down.
He had argued that flying a large delegation on chartered or commercial flights would be cheaper than maintaining the old planes, and New Zealand could not afford to replace the current ones during an economic downturn.
"We are in a recession that this government created and it would be inappropriate for us to actually commit and spend new money on planes in a recession, and therefore my personal view is we travel commercial," he said at the time.
Luxon on Monday confirmed his first flight overseas would be a day trip to Australia on Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
It was not certain at the time whether the 757 Defence Force plane would be available due to needed repairs, or the delegation would be flying commercially, but the Prime Minister's Office confirmed on Tuesday afternoon it would be back in service for the flight.
One of the Defence Force's two 757 planes. Photo: Supplied / New Zealand Defence Force
Speaking ahead of his caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Luxon was asked what had changed since his comments in June.
"The main priority was actually bringing the media with us. You know, the reality was the week before Christmas on the 20th of December when flights are pretty chocka across the Tasman as you'd expect, the chance to be able to use a 757 to take you with us and to make it easy for you is actually a motivation," he said.
He said he stood by his remarks.
"And I think there's whole bunch of options that we can get very creative around to get a solution that's appropriate for New Zealand with the challenges we've got fiscally. We can manage our way through it."
He said he and Defence Minister Judith Collins had met with the Defence Force on Monday night, asking for "long-term options for proper travel".
"We want to be out and about in the world, as we've talked about, and it's important that we can actually get around and actually do what we need to do.
"Not going to get into what the options yet could look like, but we've actually asked Defence and briefed them to actually say 'come back to us with options that actually give us a long term solution so that actually New Zealand can go out and do business in the world'.
"It's a pretty basic requirement, and I think under successive governments we need to get that investment profile right - and whether it's an investment, whether it's leasing, they'll consider all those options."
He suggested leasing an aircraft could be one of those options.
"There's a number of different ways that you can structure those arrangements and deals. Other countries actually often lease rather than purchase aircraft, it's a very common way to do it in the aviation world.
"You can actually contract, you can lease, you can do a combination of actually you can have your own aircraft that you lease, you could actually use private aircraft to lease as well.
"All we're saying is 'Hey, listen, we have to call time on this. This is embarrassing, it's not right, it's great that we've got a great ability as New Zealanders to make things work for as long as they can, we've got fantastic mechanics and all that good stuff, but we do need a long-term solution'."
He said commercial travel or chartering were also still available as options, depending on the circumstances.
"It might be appropriate for some places that we go to, it may be a much better option to travel commercial - as has been for the Coronation of the King for example, everyone travelled commercial, it was easier for us to do that.
"Don't get too worked up about it, it's just very simply that ... we need to find a solution for it. Because carrying on and doing what we've been doing doesn't work. We've got to get out in the world and hustle and make a living and as a result we've got to find a solution."
Hipkins, now returned to the opposition benches, said it was another example of Luxon "setting a different standard for other people compared to the one that he sets for himself".
"We fly on the Defence Force plane for these trips because it's actually very efficient, it's very effective, it means that a large number of people can fly relatively cheaply and relatively conveniently. He was very critical when I did that and yet now he's proposing to do the same thing himself."
It followed news the day before that Luxon had used taxpayer funding for his own te reo Māori lessons, after comments earlier in the month that people in the real world paid for such lessons themselves.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Hipkins said the planes were also used for other purposes.
"The 757s aren't primarily about transporting ministers or VIPs around, they're actually used to transport Defence Force personnel around the world for international deployments, taking people to Antarctica and so on. They're relatively old planes. One of the reasons that they have more difficulty - and it's the nature of the Defence Force aircraft - they spend more time on the ground than a commercial airliner would."
The government should consider options for replacements, he suggested, pointing to Labour's record that he said showed a strong willingness to invest in Air Force capability.
"They are currently slated for replacement before the end of the decade ... we're in the process of replacing the Hercules, we've replaced the Orions, and those were next."