Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Defence Minister Judith Collins says buying a new plane to replace the ageing 757s - or setting up a lease arrangement - is too costly right now.
It comes after Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had to book a commercial flight to attend the ASEAN summit in Australia after the one set to take the flight was grounded due to a maintenance fault.
It meant he was expected to miss a couple of meetings with foreign leaders, and left the media delegation - that had been expected to report on his movements and meetings - stranded on the tarmac.
Luxon heavily criticised his predecessor, Chris Hipkins, who - when travelling to China - had the Defence Force send a back-up 757 to Asia in case of a breakdown. Luxon then committed to not using the Defence Force planes to travel internationally if elected prime minister.
Collins this morning told reporters she had brought forward the NZDF capability review - which was set to arrive in September and would have further details about the cost and options for upgrading the ageing 757 fleet - to June.
She said the Defence Force did a good job maintaining the planes, but they were now too old and the cost for replacing them was is in the tens to hundreds of millions.
"Look, let's just be frank, it's a huge amount of money," she told reporters. "We obviously know we need them to have better kit, better platforms as they call them, and it's a matter of money. I haven't got the money.
"It's an enormous sum of money and that's why we need to be very careful."
She said New Zealanders were in a cost-of-living crisis at the moment and the failure of the plane this morning was embarrassing, but it was something that should be able to be resolved eventually.
"I think we have to be realistic," she said. "A moment's embarrassment is really difficult but nothing like the fact that a lot of people are in a cost-of-living crisis ... we just need to get to be a richer country."
She confirmed she had interim advice about leasing a plane.
"Yes, I have actually and it's just so expensive, we just can't do it at the moment - maybe a little bit later, but let's wait for the defence capability review, we'll put that into the mix."
She told RNZ's Checkpoint she did not think the New Zealand public would support spending so much money during a cost-of-living crisis, and she would not be cutting staff to make it up.
"It's an enormous amount of money, I don't have that money, and I'm not going say 'let's go and cut staff to be able to pay for it'. I'm not going to do that and I think it's very important that we rebuild the Defence Force."
She said she hoped the government would be able to replace the planes at some point in its first term, but was uncertain about whether that would happen.
Hipkins, now the opposition leader, said that when National talked about not being able to afford things, it was "because they are making the wrong choices".
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
"They are making choices like tax breaks for landlords and tax cuts at a time when they are not affordable, all of the things that we're now talking about - whether it's upgrading the Defence Force plane, which is a necessity for the Defence Force to do their jobs, whether it's providing food in schools, whether it's building state houses, whether it's properly maintaining our public assets."
He said the party when in government had replaced the Orion and Hercules planes, and the 757s were next on the Air Force list. If the coalition chose to fund a replacement for the 757s they would have his support for that.
"There's work to be done as well around the Seasprite helicopters, making sure that our naval vessels are all up to scratch as well, so there's still more work to be done in equipping the Defence Force but where other governments have talked about it, we actually did it."
"I think it's time that we did look at the 757s bearing in mind that the VIP travel is actually only a very small component of what they do."
Labour MP Damien O'Connor, who is a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Select Committee, said the reason the Air Force's 757 planes were often unable to take off was because of minor technical issues with sensors, rather than safety problems.
"I think the Air Force do a really good job to try and maintain them, there was a backup when we flew north sometimes, so there were contingencies that were built in," he told reporters.
Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
"Look, often these things are just minor technical issues, you know, with little sensors and things like that. They're not major things, but obviously they have a very high standard they have to meet. So I've never been concerned at all about the safety issues, it's around the technical issues and the verification I guess in the ability for them to take off if there's a warning light showing."
Asked what Luxon could have done about the situation, he said: "Thought about the issue a little more carefully before he made statements when he was in opposition."
He said New Zealand needed the new planes.
"I think they are kind of running out of their lifespan and would be sensible to get on and do it, but can't afford the plane and have tax cuts."
In the afternoon, the Boeing 757 aircraft had not been fixed and it was confirmed it would remain grounded, with Luxon flying back from Melboure commercially on Wednesday.
A special part from Auckland was needed to fix the problem, keeping the plane grounded in Wellington.
In a statement, the Defence Force said the aircraft had flown to Wellington on Monday in preparation for the flight to Australia and was serviceable on landing, but during the pre-flight checks on Tuesday, crew became aware of a technical fault with the nose landing gear system.
"Flight safety remains paramount and the crew and engineers are working hard to rectify the issue. The RNZAF's second Boeing 757 is in Christchurch on scheduled maintenance and is therefore unavailable to be used," it said.