DEPP won’t fix chronic underfunding problems

Mission Homefront welcomes the blunt honesty in the Defence Estate Portfolio Plan (DEPP). It lays bare what personnel have known for decades; the NZDF estate is in serious decline, and failing infrastructure and housing is directly hitting capability, morale, and retention.

The picture is grim. It’s staggering that our sailors, soldiers and aviators have been expected to live and work in crumbling buildings from the WWII era for decades with little intervention. 

We acknowledge the Minister, and Defence Estate and Infrastructure, for putting the estate on the priority list and calling out the chronic underfunding that led us here.

This is now the third estate regeneration plan in under ten years and every time, what follows is the same pattern: the need to fix, a big vision, then budget uncertainty. The DEPP is no different - its delivery relies on annual budget allocations, including the $2.5b announced in the Defence Capability Plan (DCP). Every tranche depends on future budgets, meanwhile the core underfunding problems are not dealt with. 

If the Government is serious, there needs to be massive increases in committed base-line funding to stabilise and future-proof the estate rather than patching it up. Even the report itself admits historically indicated funding won’t fix the problem, and the DEPP doesn't aim to fully resolve that gap. 

Maintenance figures make that gap even clearer: there is $500 million in unfunded planned maintenance, including $400 million of previously deferred work. Another $100 million will still go unfunded over the next three years. We ask where is the commitment to ensure adequate funding, year on year, just for maintenance alone? 

Past failures still hang over the present. Waiouru is the clearest example: 50 new homes were funded in 2023 and nothing has happened. The DEPP reveals 70% of buildings at Waiouru will hit end-of-life within ten years. Where is the urgency?

Investment Profile 3 may align with the DCP, but in the immediate term (FY26–29) the estate is still essentially funded at Profile 1 levels, with only small accelerations for “high priority” items like Homes for Families. That won’t cover the shortfall in maintenance, nor will it stabilise the estate long-term to ensure it is fully and adequately funded to meet current and future capacity. 

With the DEPP stretching out to 2040, thousands of personnel and whānau face almost two decades more of waiting, and in some cases, years more of working and living in sub-standard conditions.

Just yesterday we released photos of mushrooms and toxic black mould inside a Defence house, this is the exact outcome of chronic underinvestment thanks to yearly political decisions.

Mission Homefront supports the intent and the honesty in this plan as another step forward to improving Defence infrastructure. But only committed, multi-year base funding increases will future proof and stabilise NZDF infrastructure and provide healthy and safe working conditions for personnel and their whanau.