MIQ fatigue likely for soldiers

Hundreds of soldiers are leaving the military as the country’s top army officer says it will be years before the service is back to its pre-Covid strength.

Fatigue with mundane, managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) duties is believed to be behind much of the increased attrition in the army.

But the Chief of the Army, Major General John Boswell, said as those duties wind up there will be an increased effort to attract and retain talent.

His comments came in an interview with days after a forthright social media post from the most senior noncommissioned officer, Sergeant Major of Army Wiremu Moffitt. Moffitt asked troops to carefully consider any decision to release from their service early.

‘‘It’s disappointing to acknowledge the increasing number of people leaving our army,’’ he said. ‘‘You are valued by army and your team-mates, and there is change in the wind. 2022 will be a revived year focused on training, travel and regeneration.’’

Like Moffitt, Boswell did not resile from the fact of increasing attrition in the ranks. The army had planned for an attrition rate of 8.6 per cent this year.

‘‘But it’s now up at about 10.6 per cent, and there are signs that it will increase before it starts to get better,’’ Boswell said.

Defence figures show there have been 399 ‘‘voluntary exits’’ from the Army Regular Force in 2021 to October 31, compared to 347 in the whole of 2020. But those figures and the attrition rates do not include the number of personnel who have put in their papers signalling an intention to leave early.

A further 156 army soldiers or officers have submitted an application for early release, as of October 31. Operation Protect, the Defence contribution to the Government’s Covid-19 response, has seen soldiers serving as security at managed isolation hotels, among other roles, including military nurses serving as medical support.

‘‘It’s reduced our ability to train, it’s caused significant disruption to their families, as our personnel continue to be deployed away from home,’’ Boswell said. ‘‘And the type of role being performed by soldiers is not why a lot of them joined the army.’’

In addition to fatigue with MIQ duties, soldiers and officers, particularly those in the communications, logistics, IT and engineering trades, were increasingly attractive to the private sector, where higher wages were on offer, he said.

Withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq meant there were also fewer opportunities for overseas deployments.

Boswell said the army had ‘‘ring-fenced some of our key capabilities right from the get-go’’, meaning it would be able to mount a humanitarian assistance mission in the Pacific, or deploy special forces for missions like the evacuation of Kabul.

But larger-scale, longer deployments like Timor-Leste two decades ago would be more of a challenge. ‘‘If we need to deploy an East Timor-like force, we would need to pull people out of Op Protect, we would need to provide them with some immediate training, and we’d need to get them offshore.’’

Supplying and sustaining that force would also be a challenge at present, he said. Boswell said it would be between two and three years before the army can return to its pre-Covid strength at all levels across all its trades.

The army was putting the finishing touches on a regeneration plan, with a focus on the individual, he said. The plan would try to ensure a balance between work and family, and ensure they were paid appropriately.

‘‘And the type of role being performed by soldiers is not why a lot of them joined the army.’’

Major General John Boswell

Chief of the Army