Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to first of all—out of respect for the Minister in the chair the Hon Andrew Little and hope that he will show the same respect to us on this side of the House—respond to the comments that he made. His opening comment was a backhanded insult to me intimating that my contribution was not intellectual. I've now listened very closely to the Minister responding to the issues that we've raised and it's flimflam.There's been no intellectual effort at all by the Minister in the chair to actually respond to the issues that we've raised. I'd ask that he would do that and I'm going to go back to my original contribution. Before you're in the chair I'm going to ask some very simple questions. Number one: if we have someone—and the Hon Gerry Brownlee highlighted this too—if we have a returning Kiwi arrive at our border that we haven't already been notified of which the officials and everyone said may not be likely but it could happen—when you're dealing with national security you make sure that you close every hole and every gap. Unlikely is not good enough. For us it is that we're going to make sure that we do everything we can to make sure that even the most unlikely scenario that may emerge we're prepared and we're able to deal with that.So my question is this: if we have someone arrive on our border and we weren't notified or we become aware of their situation when they arrive how are they going to be held? If Customs are going to help hold them under what authority? If they can hold them for only four hours and it takes longer than that to get a control order in place then how are the police going to be able to surveil and monitor them? Because they've said very clearly that they're very concerned and worried that there will be a gap there and they won't be able to do that. And why—why—has the Minister not listened to our police when they said that they would welcome the amendment that I spoke to him about right at the very start in the first meeting that we had when I said We have to give our agencies the ability to be able to detain someone at the border until we can ascertain exactly what their intent is what their background is and that gives the High Court time to get a control order in place."?How simple is that? That's looking after the country's security. I get sent here from Rodney from my electorate—the officials do a very good job; I want to acknowledge them. They advise us. I will make my own decisions on what I think we need to do for our country and the safety of our country all right? Because I've got kids in my electorate that get on the bus every day that go to school; their parents want them to be safe. I've got people that go out on the weekend to a restaurant. They don't want to be exposed to the type of attacks that we see around the world.That's up to us right here right now to be vigilant because I'll tell you something: the minute you become complacent Minister the minute you say "Oh well I think it's good enough." you've handed it over to the Greens. The Greens are leading it. No one in this country trusts the Greens with our national security. They haven't supported a bill in this House for 20 years to do with our national security and their immediate reaction to this was to say that it was dog-whistling. You've had to dumb down this bill to make concessions for them because you wouldn't work with us. It's a disgrace.By the way one of the comments Minister that you made—and I'm going to address that now—is you said that over on this side of the House we're fantasists; this is a fantasy that this could arise. You're talking about—you've got two defence Ministers sat on this side of the Chamber and a Government that deployed our troops into Iraq with a serious job of disabling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. You've been up there with me. The Minister has been up there with the Hon Gerry Brownlee and myself to see the work that they've done. They expect us to do our job. Our defence forces up there that have made a huge sacrifice and done an outstanding job that we should all be proud of as a nation expect us to do our stuff.Do I know anything about the threat? I spent 10 years in the Middle East on the front lines dealing with the war on terrorism. I've worked with the Americans the British the Japanese the Danes the Australians—their defence forces their intelligence agencies. I've worked with the UN. I've been to Somalia. I've been to Darfur. I didn't see the Minister in Darfur recovering UN truck drivers taken by the Janjaweed. I haven't seen him sat in a room getting briefings about the threats from al-Qaeda or al-Shabaab. The threats are real. Don't for one minute think that we have a cloak of invincibility in New Zealand; we don't.So I'd like the Minister to stand and I'd like him to give us a considered and an intellectual response to the questions that I have raised because they are real and they are a huge gap that you could drive not a small car through; you could drive a truck through it.On this side of the Chamber we are not going to accept someone coming back into our country with the ability to walk straight out into the community when we know they've already been involved in terror activity and we know that they are a threat to law-abiding Kiwis. I'd ask the Minister to stand and make an intellectual response to the issues that I've raised. Thank you Madam Chair."