page_title: Anzac-class frigate
section_title: New Zealand controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Anzac-class frigate / Planning and development / New Zealand controversy
caption_attribution_description: English: The Royal New Zealand Navy Anzac-class frigate HMNZS Te Kaha (F77) conducts a replenishment-at-sea with the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68), not visible, in the Philippine Sea on 2 July 2017. Sailors from Te Kaha and Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 11 were conducting a series of bilateral training operations designed to increase interoperability and readiness.
context_page_description: The Anzac class is a ship class of ten frigates; eight operated by the Royal Australian Navy and two operated by the Royal New Zealand Navy. During the 1980s, the RAN began plans to replace the River-class destroyer escorts with a mid-capability patrol frigate, and settled on the idea of modifying a proven foreign design for Australian conditions. Around the same time, the RNZN was seeking to replace their Leander-class frigates while maintaining blue-water capabilities. A souring of relations between New Zealand and the United States of America in relation to New Zealand's nuclear-free zone and the ANZUS security treaty prompted New Zealand to seek improved ties with other nations, particularly Australia. As both nations were seeking warships of similar capabilities, the decision was made in 1987 to collaborate on their acquisition. The project name is taken from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps of the First World War.
  Twelve ship designs were tendered in 1986. By 1989, the project had selected a proposal by Germany's Blohm + Voss, based on their MEKO 200 design, to be built in Australia by AMECON at Williamstown, Victoria.
context_section_description: From the late 1960s decision of the UK government to withdraw the Royal Navy from East of Suez in the early 1970s considerable doubt existed within the RNZN, government and community about the continuing relevance, viability and usefulness of an RNZN force of 3 to 4 frigates. The option of the United States Coast Guard's (USCG) Hamilton-class cutters was seriously considered as an alternative to the order of HMNZS Canterbury in 1968, which was approved under the understanding that New Zealand would hold continued access to the UK market after Britain entered the European Economic Community and was affordable only because it was part of a British deal with the Yarrow shipyard to build seven RN, Chilean and RNZN Leanders at less than cost to save shipyard jobs in Scotland.
  During the late 1970s, proposals for a modified Hamilton-class cutter with less range or the RN Type 21 frigate with similar anti-submarine capability to a Leander but with a smaller crew and with less AW, AA and AD. Both these proposals and others for full combat Dutch and FFG-7 frigates were rejected by the Muldoon government and in the early 1980s a number of retired naval officers and political scientists like Helen Clark and Robert Miles were seriously debating and writing papers and articles, suggesting options such as RN OPVs, the Castle-class and the USCG's WMEC Bear-class. The navy was interested in some of these ideas, but only for the option proposed by the 1978 Defence Review of acquiring 2 OPV vessels to patrol the expanded EEZ and free the Leanders for other uses and for replacement of the inadequate and worn out Lake-class patrol vessels. After the election of the Lange Labour government, thinking on alternatives to frigates for the RNZN had moved towards purpose-built designs rather like the Irish Navy's Eithne patrol corvette, a sort of 1,800-ton high endurance corvette with Leander-like helicopter hangar and pad or small Meko 100–140 designs rather different from those built for Argentina. After the nuclear ships crisis and other events, the acquisition of some Anzac frigates was virtually certain, because the key Labour MP Jim Anderton, either accepted the Anzac ships as a necessary increased self-defence capability with the securing of a nuclear free policy or tacitly agreed not to oppose it like Helen Clark.
  The new most touted off the shelf options in 1986–88 (the Castle and Bear-class vessels) were no longer possible, as the Scottish shipbuilders had closed and development of the Bear cutter option into a stretched vessel was effectively impossible after the ANZUS impasse. The New Zealand government's planned acquisition of the Anzac-class frigates was a major point of debate and contention: researcher Peter Greener claims that it "was possibly the most strongly debated defence purchase of the century". In New Zealand at the time, "frigate" was a dirty word, and attempts to make the replacement of the old navy ships more palatable to the public included using euphemisms like "ocean combat ship" and "ocean surveillance vessel". The government's official stance was dedication to maintaining a blue-water navy, primarily in order to defend the nation and contribute to regional security. Despite this, the government was slow to respond to opponents of the project, which included peace campaigners, politicians (from both within and outside the Labour Party, and from both ends of the political spectrum), and military personnel. Most of the concern revolved around the cost of purchasing frigate-type ships, along with the idea that four high-capability warships would be too few and too overspecialised to operate in the roles envisioned for the RNZN.
  The primary role foreseen for the RNZN was fisheries protection, particularly following the introduction of a 200-nautical-mile (370 km; 230 mi) Exclusive Economic Zone by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; this was thought to require a minimum of six vessels to effectively police. Peace campaigners claimed that the purchase of the Anzacs was a politically motivated decisi
caption: HMNZS Te Kaha in 2017
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