Matthew Hooton made a case of universal national service on Anzac Day in the New Zealand Herald. Photo: New Zealand Herald
On Anzac Day, pundit Matthew Hooton floated the return of national military service in his weekly New Zealand Herald column headlined 'The case for universal military training'.
After setting out the country's current financial problems, he proposed getting a bit more of a social bang out of the big bucks that - like it or not - we'll soon be spending on defence.
"Why not invest it in universal military training - not as an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, like boot camps, but as a fence at the top?" he asked.
He described the idea as "Outward Bound for everyone" but with military skills added - along with "cooking, cleaning, changing a tyre and making a school lunch - skills their Gen X and Gen Y parents have failed to teach them or develop themselves."
Each year 70,000 New Zealanders turn 18, and he reckoned about 9000 of those aren't in employment, education or training and they're already costing taxpayers anyway.
It's an interesting idea. Many nations - including several in the EU - have compulsory national service and there could be social and individual benefits to such a scheme.
In 2023 political party TOP floated a national civic service programme offering a $5000 tax-free savings boost to under-23s.
But this week that talking point morphed into a talk radio pile-on deploying stereotypes and misusing statistics.
Talk radio amps the idea
Universal military service got universal backing from talkback callers to the Herald's stablemate Newstalk ZB this week.
"Kids that have got ADHD and some on the spectrum could actually benefit a lot from it," one caller confidently claimed on Monday, basing her opinion on reality TV shows where people are "stuck on an island and left to fend for themselves."
But ZB Afternoons host Matt Heath reckoned the problem wasn't young people on the spectrum - but on their phones.
"They'd be scared to be stripped of their digital rights, but a lot of them know that that would be a good thing for them. There's no doubt that you would feel a lot better after a day's physical activity out in the wop-wops," he told ZB listeners last Monday
When Gen-Xer Heath created the irreverent youth TV show Back of the Y 30 years ago, you'd have got long odds on him endorsing military service for young Kiwis on talk radio thirty years later.
But he wasn't alone.
"I love the idea," ZB Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills said the same day.
"We're not talking about someone that wants to be a doctor, a teacher or an apprentice mechanic. We're talking about directionless people. Off you go to compulsory six months in military training. What's wrong with it?"
"One in four 15-to-19 year olds do not have a job. 25 per cent of young, healthy New Zealanders don't have work," he told listeners.
But many of the 25 percent without a job are still at school, university, polytechnic or in training. Universal or compulsory military service would also capture the would-be doctors, traders and tradies in work, education or training.
But Mills' callers - most of whom sounded like their working lives were long behind them - still liked the sound of it for today's young Kiwis nonetheless.
Sounding the alarm with stats
Duncan Garner's Editor In Chief podcast seized on alarming stats about young people without jobs. Photo: YouTube
While he wasn't explicitly backing universal national service, columnist and broadcaster Duncan Garner also reckoned compulsory bootcamp was an idea whose time had come.
"Our teenagers aren't working! One in four 15 to 19 year-olds are not employed, not working, not in education or training. One in four! 25 percent!" his Editor in Chief podcast proclaimed.
"The stats don't lie," Garner insisted in his podcast.
His column for The Listener headlined When did our teens stop working and whose fault is it? seized on Stats NZ data to the end of 2024 showing 23.8 percent of 15-19 year olds were jobless.
But that included those still in school, university or in training and the actual proportion of under 25s not in employment, education, or training (NEETs) was 13.2 per cent in December 2024.
In the Listener, Garner lamented "tens of thousands of young men and women who don't attend school, work or some form of training ... who are idle at home".
"It's not just a ticking time bomb. Because I truly believe the bomb's gone off with these numbers."
"They're gaming. They're on social media, doomscrolling. Not in any form of training or education," he claimed on Editor in Chief.
If Kiwi youths really are doomscrolling in their tens of thousands, that'd be great for the media - given that it means flipping through troubling news headlines many times each day.
How many are there really?
The MSD Insights report in 2023 said 39,000 people under 25 were receiving a main benefit in 2023 - and about half of those were getting Jobseeker Support.
It'll be a bit more than that by now given rising unemployment in 2024, but it's likely there would be roughly 20,000 under 25s currently classed as 'work ready' but not working, learning or training today.
The unemployment rate is higher - and growing faster - for 15-19 year olds than in any other age group. And the rate of young people who are NEET - not in employment, education, or training - went up more than one percent to 13.2 percent in the quarter to December - the last period where stats are available.
Not good.
But in the past decade the previous annual peak was 12.8 percent in the year to March 2021. The low point was 11.2 percent two years later.
A Stats NZ analysis of 2004 to 2024 showed the NEET rate was higher than it is today from the GFC of 2008 until 2014.
Even when we had a so-called rockstar economy back in the 2010s, the rate didn't go below 11.5 per cent, according to MSD stats.
Jobs harder to get
In his Listener article, Garner acknowledged it's harder for young people to get jobs now because older people here are working longer and we've had record immigration in recent years.
An [https://www.berl.co.nz/economic-insights/youth-and-young-adults-where-unemployment-hits-hardest#:~:text=From%20December%202023%20to%20December,percentage%20points%20to%2016.4%20percent analysis by Berl in March confirmed that.
But Berl also found the labour force participation rate for 15-24 year olds increased in the last quarter of 2024 by 2.5 percent to 66.4 percent.
It reached a high of 69.2 percent in 2024. In September that year, recruitment company Eclipse identified a "surge in participation rates among 15-19 year olds in the last two years".
"Factors such as tightened education policies, economic conditions, and evolving job market dynamics have influenced youth decisions," Eclipse said, which - if true - means more young people adapting and not opting to sit idle at home.
"They are eager to work," said Berl's analysis in March.
"It could also mean that youth and young adults are exploring other avenues of occupation, such as tertiary education - including vocational education."
And also Australia.
"The brain drain could become a brain flood if young adults ... move there to take advantage of the stronger job market."
In which case, the prospect of compulsory military service would probably become another push factor for thousands of young Kiwis who do have education, training and plans.
Unemployment for 15-24 year-olds is significantly lower in Australia, as Duncan Garner pointed out in The Listener, and welfare rules are also tighter.
But in the first two months of this year alone, it climbed from under 8 percent to over 10 in Australia.
Mediawatch couldn't find a rash of comment in the media there claiming a lost generation of jobless, directionless Australians are heading straight to the social welfare scrapheap, clutching their digital devices.
Youth unemployment and welfare dependency are a real - and expensive - issues. National service is an interesting idea that could deliver social and individual benefits.
But putting thousands of young people with prospects into military service alongside a much smaller number of jobless, undereducated ones is unlikely to ease the main problem of an underperforming, unproductive economy.
And those in the media opining about it should deploy more of the discipline they claim is lacking in the young when they seize on statistics to reinforce stereotypes.
