Brownlee Gerry: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrownlee Gerry: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10536. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Defence): I think I should respond to some of the comments that have been made starting with the comments made by Phil Goff. The United States report that the member quoted from was brought to the attention of the select committee and allegedly in the absence of any other reports that were available.We have been in the Taji mission for just on 18 months and in that time—in conjunction with the Australians who are the senior partners in that particular mission—there have been some 4000 Iraqi troops pass through that training process. The suggestion was that they are living in difficult circumstances that they are not being treated properly let alone being given proper rations—particularly water—and that their absenteeism is at a high level. That is not the experience of the Australia - New Zealand mission. The matters that have been raised in that US report have been directly addressed by the New Zealand mission with the Iraqi authorities—in particular the on-base living conditions of the Iraqi trainees. There was also a question at the start of the mission about whether or not there would be sufficient numbers turning up to the training that was being offered by the Anzac mission. The subscription rate has been exceptionally high.The quality of what is being delivered has been accepted and the conditions under which that is being delivered have also been accepted so I totally reject the suggestions that the circumstances that were stated in a United States report delivered early last year are comparable to the circumstances and experience that the New Zealand training mission has—Hon Phil Goff: The US report is on Camp Taji. It’s on the very camp where we are doing the training.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Yes the member of course screams from his seat that it was about the place where the New Zealanders are working. The place is 65 square kilometres—a huge base—and the trainees whom we are dealing with are quite separate from the trainees other countries are dealing with. I am sorry—the member tries to call on his experience in these matters but he does not have the first-hand experience that others in this Committee have.As for the issue of the corrupt leadership that is exactly why the Iraqi Government has asked New Zealanders and Australians—and the United States and the Spanish and everybody else who is there—to be in Taji to offer a training system and to offer an experience and an example that is separate and different from what it has known in the past. What we have to do is ensure that in Iraq Daesh is beaten. It will be beaten only by competent Iraqi security forces. We are not going to put boots on the ground in that particular fight. It may be what the Labour Party would want to do but it is certainly not what this Government is going to do particularly in the absence of any request from the Iraqi Government itself.There was then this question about confidence in either me or the Ministry of Defence—whatever. I have huge confidence in the New Zealand Defence Force. I have huge respect for the New Zealand Defence Force. What it might think of me is somewhat irrelevant. My responsibility is to ensure that it has sufficient resources to do the jobs that it is doing. I have got to say I was extremely impressed by what I have seen in Taji and very impressed by what we have recently seen in Fiji. New Zealanders do make $1 of military spending go far further than almost any other military in the world and they are to be commended for that.Mr Mark raised issues about the white paper. All I can say is hold on—it is coming. There are a number of things that have emerged over the last few years since the 2010 white paper that have to be considered. Firstly New Zealand has a big interest in the Southern Ocean. We have a big presence in the Antarctic yet we have had very little focus on that as far as capability is concerned. We have sort of hung on in there. The incident that occurred about 18 months ago when the—[Bell rung] Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The Rt Hon—the Hon Mr Brownlee.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Thank you for the elevation—I am very impressed.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well it is Speaker coming soon.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Ha ha! You have thrown me there I can tell you. I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life.Ron Mark: The incident.Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: The incident that occurred around about 2 years ago when there was a close go with the Boeing 757 landing in the Antarctic changed a lot of things because the Civil Aviation Authority brought in some rules that said well when you are heading down there with a 2-hour window for go/no-go loaded with passengers it does leave you in a difficult circumstance if you go just a few minutes more. The reality is that we do not have a plane that will get us there and get us back. When it comes to our ability to take a ship down to that part of the world we do not currently have a vessel because of recent signings-up to international rules or regulations about what you need for ice protection. We no longer have a vessel that is capable under those rules to safely get to the Antarctic. So we are in a position of saying that the Antarctic is important but we have got no capability to get there and back in a safe sense. Yes we can still send the C-130 Hercules in but their loads are somewhat compromised. We can still get the Boeing 757 to fly down there to pick up passengers but not necessarily to take them there and back. So there does have to be a broader consideration about how we work through that particular conundrum.The other thing that has emerged over the last few years is the potential reach for terrorist activities right into our own shores. We are part of a coalition in the Middle East expressed mainly in our roles in the headquarters in Kuwait and the Taji military camp in Iraq because we are not immune to the activities of terrorists. Although we might want to forget about the Lindt cafe in Australia which is very close to us and imagine that there would be no one living in this country who might want to engage in that sort of activity we need to remind ourselves that we do have people on a watch-list. We do not want to bring in laws that would impede the freedom of New Zealanders to go about their business in any old way they like but we do have to watch some people because they have expressed in various ways sentiment that would mean that they should be taken very seriously and at least watched to make sure that they do not carry out some of the activities that we have seen in other countries.So the whole concept of intelligence around security and its role inside the fence is something else that will be new in the white paper review when it comes. Once again it is not something that you can just magic up out of the air but it has to be part of a much broader approach to things. I would be as I have been in all things since becoming a Minister more—