UPDATE - 19 MAY 2010
"The Government is considering the Medallic Recognition Joint Working Group's report on the proposed NZDF Medal.
The NZDF is NOT currently accepting applications for the planned New Zealand Defence Force Medal. It is anticipated that a call for applications will happen in the second half of 2010.
It will take approximately 20 to 22 weeks from when a decision is made by the Government, before any medals are available to be issued. There will need to be a tender process for the manufacturer(s), and then the medal and ribbon will still need to be manufactured.
The NZDF Medals Office expects a large number of people to apply for the medal and, even with extra staff to process the applications, this could potentially be a two to three year project."
You people work like old people fuck!
How many friggin' years does this have to take? You pricks can vote yourselves a pay rise in a few nanoseconds.
Are you waiting for a few more of us to friggin' die?
It is a national embarrassment to turn out to an ANZAC day parade and the only ones NOT wearing a medal are the ex-bloody servicemen! Firemen, Cops- yep they all have them (and deserved, don't get that wrong) Soldiers- forget it.
Every damned thing in the service needed doing the day before, so is it too much to ask for a bit of hurry-up on this?
Update:
The NZDF site has issued an update today that is exactly the same as the one I posted in May!
OI!- Wayne Mapp!- light a fire under these idle fuckers!
14 comments:
Oswald. It seems Wayne Mapp isn't listening.
Rumour has it that the Associate Minister of Defence was responsible to officially write to the PM and really start the ball rolling weeks ago, but has not got around to it yet.
And I might just not get around to supporting and voting for them in the future. How about "doing what you said you were going to do". Thats all were after. Have they forgoten about it perhaps? Have they changed their mind? Is there anyone home?
Now they have sacked the Associate Minister of Defence. This means one of two things: either with a new Associate Minister we will finally get some movement on this medal; or they will use this as a conveniant excuse to further delay the process. Anybody want to place a bet on which it will be?
After all, Rodney will have to reveiw everything heather did - that could take months, especially as he has other, more important (to him anyway) things to worry about than honouring the people who serve this country!
They have finally changed the text of the update. Now instead of applications being called for in "the second half of 2010" It says "before the end of they year" I guess they figured out that we all noticed that it is already well into the second half of 2010, and they haven't done squat.
Everyone on ANZAC parades might have heaps of medals these days but very few are them are worth a damn! What's the big deal?
I guess the average person has no idea what ribbon colours relate to which peace keeping operation but what they do know, is that their old man, brother, mother, grandad, the vast majority of ex service persons, served for x amount of years in the NZ armed forces and are medaless on ANZAC day. Why do they have nothing to show for their service and yet todays 20somethings tend to sport up to half a dozen different peace keeping gongs. I reckon that doesn't stack up in the eyes of the public. Remarkedly the UK, once totally against this idea, now in fact may beat NZ to it. See the opening speech of the UK Lib Dem conference. Get a move on NZ.
Oswald - not sure about the rumour you had heard about an announcement at the RNZRSA AGM on 11 Oct - as I saw something that said the medal wasn't even going to cabinet until mid-November. I like your rumour much better. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.
Looks like you were right after all, they announced right when you said they would. Still a bit of a bummer about how long its going to take though. Wonder what ever posessed them to decide to engrave every single medal? Surely that has to add cost and delay to the whole process? I'd rather have a plain one sooner, than an engraved one a year from next Tuesday.
Hi, naming is the right thing to do even though the wait seems really long. Historically there was much grief for the MOD when they decided not to name WW2 medals. I understand that many decided to not bother applying for them because of it and the general concensous these days about that is 'what a bunch of stingy barstards' for not maning them. In some corners the naming of this medal will make the difference between it being desirerable and it being a gong any bugger can buy and wear. I'm not happy about waiting... but I will if it's the difference between named and not named.
Ex Forces - appreciate your point of view. Prior to the announcement it never occurred to me that they would take the trouble to name them, or that anybody might feel aggrieved if their medal wasn't named. I have four medals and only one is named, and I can't say that it ever bothered me that the rest were not. But others obviously do care, so I guess it's good that they will name the new medal. Of course, the discussion is academic. The decision has been made to name them and nothing we say for or against the idea will change it.
I just saw an audit report by MOD on the Medals Office, and they have serious doubts about the ability of the office to meet the governments staed intent to have th efirst 50 medals issued to the oldest veterans before Christmas. No surprise there. They delayed on every stage of the plan. Here it is mid-November, and they have no finalised design, no Royal assent yet, and certainly no contract. No way they are going to have any medals available by Christmas, and you can count ion every other announced date for delivery slipping too.
What gets up my nose is the lack of information. They promised us frequent updates, but three weeks between updates isn't what I call frequent. Last we heard on 7 Feb they were going to write to HM for approval. Have they done so? We don't know. I just want them to tell us what's going on - at every step of the process, I don't think that's too much to ask.
This is really getting old. Seven weeks since the last update. We still don't know if HM has approved the design or teh Royal Warrant, or if the Goivernor general has approved the Regulations. Even though they said that a picture of the new medal would appear in March - tomorrow is April 1st - and no picture. We still don't know what the medal will look like, where it will go in the order of wear, and most importantly - will they meet their deadline of opening up applications in April. I am very disappointed.
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