Humanitarian and Disaster Relief in the Asia-Pacific: Shangri-La Dialogue

This is my second opportunity to attend, and speak at, the Shangri-La Dialogue.  

This forum continues to provide us with an unparalleled opportunity to discuss regional security and emerging issues. The presence of so many distinguished figures from a wide range of nations underscores just how important it is.

Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief are critically important to the countries and people of our region.

In recent years we have seen the crippling and debilitating effects of a wide range of natural disasters - earthquakes, as occurred in Chile in February, tsunamis, massive storm surges, extreme cyclones, volcanoes, and severe flooding.

None of us are immune from the effects of these disasters.

Today I want to address three themes in respect of humanitarian relief issues in our region.

The first is the inherent susceptibility of our region to natural disasters.

The second is the resulting need to see humanitarian relief as a core military task.

The final theme is the need to create better relationships between civilian and military agencies where humanitarian assistance is concerned. 

We live in a region susceptible to a wide range of natural disasters.

Over the past four decades the evidence shows that there has been a three-fold increase in the incidence of extreme weather events - large cyclones, massive storm surges, and large wind-driven waves.

Combine this with the impact of rising sea levels and population growth, and we have increasing numbers of people at risk across our region.

Clearly nations have a fundamental duty to act first in the face of a natural disaster. We have the prime responsibility of looking after our own people.

But the reality is that there are always going to be events that are so catastrophic that no country can deal with them on their own.

The combination of rising sea levels and extreme weather events, such as cyclones, generally pose a disproportionate danger to the people of the South Pacific, many of whom live in high risk areas.

Many islands in the Pacific are small, low-lying and remote. They have limited national infrastructure to fall back on.  

These countries quite rightly look to their South Pacific neighbours, especially New Zealand and Australia, to provide assistance in times of disaster.

This leads to my second theme.

Humanitarian relief is increasingly a core task for all defence forces.

The capabilities of defence forces need to explicitly provide for humanitarian requirements. They should form part of core military business, not be simply a secondary task.

There are several reasons why humanitarian relief activities are central to the role of our defence forces.

The combat capabilities of defence forces are one of the reasons why they are very effective as first-response organisations. They are often one of the few national organisations that maintain large numbers of disciplined personnel available at short notice, while operating integrated fleets of ships, aircraft and high-mobility vehicles. 

When disasters occur, the community expects all available resources to be mobilised, and for defence forces to play a lead role in disaster relief.

New Zealand has recently held a public consultation process as part of the New Zealand Defence Review. The public expect in response to a disaster nothing less than the full mobilisation of the NZDF to the extent necessary to save lives and property.  This expectation is shared by both local and national leaders.

International experience has shown that major disasters will almost immediately overwhelm local emergency services. 

As the then US Assistant Secretary of Defence, Paul McHale, testified before a joint hearing of the US House Armed Services Committee into the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina, the "initial hurricane strike and several levee breaches in New Orleans transformed local first responders and their families into some of the first victims.  In many cases, police, firefighters, and emergency medical services were no longer mission capable".

In this situation, having defence forces at appropriate levels of readiness, and with a range of capabilities, is critical.

The deployment of defence assets was a critical element of all countries' responses to the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. In this example, relief efforts, including by affected countries such as Indonesia, were all under civilian control.  

In the South Pacific, the New Zealand Government has regularly called upon the NZDF's strategic air and sea transport, helicopter, maritime and overland surveillance and engineering capabilities to support relief operations. 

We are also introducing seven new naval vessels into service which have humanitarian relief as a core function.

The new multi-role vessel, the 9000-tonne HMNZS Canterbury, can support and sustain a deployed company for up to 30 days, inclusive of transit.  It can transport up to four medium utility helicopters and other vehicles and equipment; produce and store 100,000 litres of fresh water per day; provide limited medical support, and store thirty-three ISO containers.

In September last year we deployed Canterbury - together with transport aircraft, helicopters and ground assets - to support relief operations in Samoa and Tonga after an 8.3 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

This deployment gave us the ability to transport significant quantities of relief supplies, off-load these supplies and relief resources at remote atolls with no wharf or air access, and conduct helicopter relief operations.   

The Canterbury illustrates that having humanitarian assistance or disaster relief as a core defence task does mean thinking about force structure and the extent of training.

It has also had the effect of shifting acquisition priorities away from solely combat platforms, to multi-role capabilities more suited to a range of defence tasks.    

The New Zealand Defence Review identifies as a principal task of the NZDF the ability to contribute to whole-of-government efforts at home and abroad in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.

These operations will have implications for the capability-mix decisions flowing from the Review - particularly as we look to replace our strategic air transport fleet and also acquire a new shorter-range maritime air patrol capability.     

We have recognised that platforms configured for solely combat operations are not normally the most appropriate asset in humanitarian assistance. This is because they are designed for war fighting. They have limited transport and logistic capability.

International assistance does involve questions of sovereignty and international jurisdiction. We must, therefore, ensure that all parties are comfortable with the means for delivery.

This leads me into my final theme.

One of the key challenges for defence forces used to training for combat is building a better understanding of relief operations.

This means giving confidence to recipient countries that the defence presence from other countries does not infringe the sovereignty of states.

This means civilian authorities and militaries have to plan to work together and support each other in humanitarian activities. Civilian authorities and planners have to become confident in seeing the broad spectrum of capabilities available to defence forces in relief operations.

A frigate, for example, has impressive capabilities in communications, airlift, aerial assessment, and evacuation capability, while providing a disciplined manpower resource.

Defence force personnel need to become better at explaining the usefulness of their capabilities to civilian authorities. Seeing humanitarian relief as a core function will assist this. 

Considerable work has already been done to build better relationships and understandings between militaries and non-government organisations.

But I think we can do better.

A more comprehensive integration of humanitarian roles into defence forces will also mean more effective relations with NGOs.  

I acknowledge the substantial work that has been done over the past few years by the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

The ARF countries have approached this task in a co-operative way that is a good example of regional co-operation and longer-term community building.

The ARF Strategic Guidance for humanitarian relief and the voluntary "Model Arrangements for the use of Foreign Military and Civil Defence Assets in Disaster Relief" provides a comprehensive framework for regional humanitarian activities.

The initiative to voluntarily share regional mapping information is another welcome project.

New Zealand is looking forward to participating in the second ARF Disaster Relief field exercise in Manado, Indonesia, next year.

This exercise provides an opportunity to put into practice some of the work done by the ARF in recent years. I commend Japan and Indonesia for their efforts to organise this exercise. I am sure many regional countries will support it.  

The bottom line is that regional organisations must make a difference to people's lives, especially when they are most in need.

Asia is part of New Zealand's home region.  We acknowledge the importance of being a "good neighbour".

To complement this work, I suggest that humanitarian relief be a priority area of work for the ADMM+ group which will meet for the first time later this year.

The FPDA partners have similar objectives.

In conclusion, our region is inherently vulnerable to natural disasters. Because of this, we have all come a long way in developing humanitarian relief capabilities in the past decade. Our defence forces have done superb work in a multitude of disaster relief activities.

Regional confidence-building and a greater understanding of humanitarian purposes for defence capabilities, by both defence forces and non-government organisations, are part of growing that capacity.

It is our responsibility to build their capacity to the benefit of our people in the region.