The Minister for Defence, Ron Marks, announced that the Royal New Zealand Air Force will buy four Boeing P8 Poseidon aircraft at a cost of $2.3bn. They will arrive and be in use by 2023.
$2.3bn is a large sum of money for a small country with a population of less than 5m people. However, these planes will replace the old Orion aircraft which have been in use since 1966. The Poseidon is a war plane, designed for anti-submarine warfare. The Australian Airforce has 8 of these aircraft, purchased from the US navy. Ron Marks says that we need the same aircraft as our neighbours and allies so that we can provide support for them if there is a need.
The Royal New Zealand Airforce uses the Orion aircraft for surveillance of the sea, checking ships which are inside our Exclusive Economic Zone. The EEZ is a distance of 200 nautical miles all the way around our country (1 nautical mile is 1,852 metres or 1 degree of latitude). The Orions are also used for search and rescue and humanitarian work like taking supplies to a Pacific country after a cyclone. Our search and rescue area is huge, from the South Pole to near the equator.
Many New Zealanders will not agree that we need aircraft which can be used in a war. However, our country is small and isolated, so we need friends.
Vocabulary
• aircraft – (singular or plural) aeroplane or aeroplanes
• purchase (v) – buy
• allies (n) – friends especially countries which support each other in times of war
• surveillance (n) – watching, checking, spying
• humanitarian (adj) – aid for people who have suffered a disaster
• cyclone (n) – hurricane