Mark RonHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Madam Deputy Speaker please accept my sympathies on such sad news. Can I start by thanking you and welcoming you back to Parliament and all members of the House. I know that while it's a bit belated—we've been back a week or so—I hope that everybody did find the opportunity to spend time with friends whānau and family and to take a well-earned break. It's been good getting back into work and some of us came back quite early as we had some important things to do but it's also been interesting. You know we had a saying in Waiōuru years ago—and I think they still say the same thing—which is that if you stay in Waiōuru long enough you'll get to meet everybody in the New Zealand Army and I guess there's an element of truth here in this place if you take that same point. If you stay in this House long enough—and the Hon Gerry Brownlee will know this because he came into Parliament in 1996 at the same time as I did—you get to see the same thing happening over and over again. It's a bit cyclic. You know I do reflect on history repeating itself and I do remember sitting on the Opposition benches and watching the glee from the Government side as Labour changed leadership time and time again—watching the jockeying and the vying and the positioning and the lobbying that went on trying to predict the outcome hearing the denials and then seeing the inevitable change—and I guess we're seeing that all again right now as the newly returned Parliament gets back to work and the Opposition is clearly engaged in some soul-searching and some thinking about whether or not they've got the right leadership team. It's fair to say that there's some pretty astonishing talent that's come in on the backbenches of the National Party caucus and—Clayton Mitchell: Like Matt King. Hon RON MARK: Like Matt King. I mean he's the brightest light that they've got—a very bright chap. He's the finest in Northland that the National Party could dig up you know. But there are people who have aspirations and hopes and desires and who see a long-term future and they probably think that some of their more senior members down on the front bench have probably had their time. So this is natural. Michelle Boag used to refer to it as the clearing the dead wood sort of policy—wasn't it? So there's a bit of tree-chopping going on over there and all I'll say is that this is nothing new. It's part of growth and it's part of rejuvenation and refreshment and we can speculate all we like on what the outcome might be but good luck with that I say to the National caucus. We are sure that you'll make the right decision for the time being and that eventually you will settle in a place with a leader who you'll feel comfortable with and confident in and who will take you into the next election. So good luck with that. It's part of the democratic process and parties tend to go through that. Fifteen months ago New Zealand First looked at the options it had available and on balance we decided—looking at the coalition agreement and looking at what the nature of the Government might be—that a modified status quo wasn't going to do it and that we needed to do something fresh. So we took a bold decision to anoint the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern as the Prime Minister and to sign a coalition agreement with Labour and here we are. I'd like to think that what we did has put some heart back into governance. I'd like to think that what we did has started focusing on putting people first—you know New Zealanders first from the New Zealand First caucus perspective—and New Zealand first. I think we'd like to think that we wanted to shift the gear on the way that some of the technocrats looked at some of the problems like housing and social support and disability and special needs education. I have to say I'm tired of trying to make representations around the special needs of our children in schools in the Wairarapa and just getting nowhere. I'm tired of trying to talk to the Hon Jonathan Coleman about issues within the district health boards (DHBs). In all fairness as I said to him at the time I was a National Party appointee to two DHBs and I worked on three and I could see quite clearly where the problems were. But Jonathan Coleman had his own view of the world and he didn't really want to listen to other people and you know good luck to him. He's no longer here. He's doing what he really loves doing: something else other than this.But I do think that we this Government saw that there needed to be some fundamental changes in the way in which the Government treated the people of this nation—that we have a Government of heart and a Government that wanted to lift the hopes and aspirations of people. We are doing that by firstly recognising that there is a housing problem and secondly by recognising that the disparity gap between the haves and the have-nots is too great. It does not reflect the values of New Zealanders in New Zealand. It is not New Zealand" to see so many people living in poverty living in cars and unable to pay the market rents. Of course some political parties worship the market because the market can solve everything! Well we never ever believed that—never in the 25 years of New Zealand First's history. We've never subscribed to the view.We believe that Governments should govern and lead and lead in line with the values and principles that New Zealanders hold dear to. Some of that goes back to the days of Mickey Savage. Some of that for me goes back to the days of Norm Kirk and some of that goes back to great people like Keith Holyoake and dare I say it even Jim Bolger. This Government will take on some big challenges. I'm pleased as a former business person—a person who had the responsibility of putting my home up on hock to finance a business pay staff pay taxes pay rates and try to eke out enough of that to actually pay ourselves and give our families the support it needed. But sitting here and watching corporates and major players on the international scene not pay any taxes at all is something that just does not sit right and that's going to be addressed. Now whether that's done with a digital services tax—well let's see because those matters will come before this House and it will be led—led—by this Government.I want to talk about one other thing and this is this notion of tax cuts. So we hear the same old mantra coming up again. I have to remind the House that essential services like policing health education and the defence force need to be paid for. That means people have got to pay taxes. That means they have to be funded. And continuing to—dare I say it some of us would say—throw pork-barrel politics around to garner votes during an election year by offering up tax cuts undermines a Government's true responsibilities to deliver on such things as defence. Everyone knows that as far as I'm concerned I've got the dream job: Minister of Defence and Minister for Veterans and it's been an absolute pleasure working for our men and women in uniform.I've got to say a big shout-out to a couple of people: Tim Macindoe Simon O'Connor and Andrew Little are people who have taken the opportunity to travel with me to see our men and women in the field on operations and deployed doing the job that we the people of New Zealand send them to do. For us to go ahead and to be able to implement a capability plan that provides surety and stability to our men and women in uniform we have to have a degree of consensus within the House across Parliament. There has to be some assurance for our military people that a plan that's put in place by one Government is not just tipped on its head. The air combat capability disbandment was a classic example that gutted men and women of the air force. We can't go back to those places. We can't have Governments making decisions to buy 105 light armoured vehicles when someone like myself is saying "Don't do that" and hog-tying the defence budget for the next how many years. And now here's the irony: I'm the guy that didn't want to buy them tried to tell the Labour Government at the time and now I'm the guy that's got to sell them like the NH90s. It's ridiculous. We need a high level of consensus if we are to live up to our responsibilities to our men and women who serve us in some very stressful locations around the world.I just want to say that I am grateful that Tim Macindoe travelled with me to South Sudan to the UAE to Egypt and to Israel and that Simon O'Connor did the same and Andrew Little did the same. I extend the olive branch out again to the Green Party. Please come with me on these trips and learn first-hand the work that the men and women of our defence force do. Then the Green Party might understand and they might be able to work with us a little closer and accept the decisions that we have to make.I'll just conclude by saying it's an absolute privilege to have the jobs that I have as Minister of Defence and veterans' affairs and I just hope that over the next year we can produce a plan that the whole of Parliament can lock in and support maybe not 100 percent but by crikey 80 percent would be pretty jolly good."