Mark RonRON MARK (Deputy Leader—NZ First): It is a pleasure to be able to stand and speak on the Estimates for Vote Defence and Vote Defence Force for New Zealand First. A couple of things in response to the Labour commentary to my—Hon Jo Goodhew: Right.RON MARK: —right yes. That is bizarre is it not? It will change—it will change soon. I guess what New Zealand First will point out are a couple of things in the report—and I will come back to the Labour comments.Firstly we note the appropriations that the Government has made for Defence and as much as those members want to pat themselves on the back and talk about how it might well be a percentage increase we say that that is about smoke and mirrors. We point out one thing very very clearly: we are still talking less than 1 percent of GDP. If I think back to a time when we had a National Government in this country where 16 of its Cabinet Ministers had served operationally overseas it is a sad and sorry state that we now have a National Government that does not value defence.I have got to put on the record that it is really interesting to hear—every party in this House stands up and says what a wonderful job our Defence Force personnel do internationally when they are deployed with very scarce and minimal resources—short in number but always everyone says punching above their weight. Well we take that for granted because we still do not resource the Defence Force to the level that it deserves to be able to perform these functions on our behalf in hostile environments. New Zealand First has always said that we should be spending 2 percent of GDP on defence and we are not even halfway there. I think an outgoing National Government will need to reflect when it is sitting in Opposition on its track record over the last 9 years because if this is the best you can do ladies and gentlemen you are going to fail.I want to point out a couple of things. It is interesting in the report where we say: We heard the ministry is halfway through an extensive change programme to significantly increase the number of experts working on capability delivery from 11 people in 2015 to 40 people." What does that say? It means that in terms of the overview of procurement process under the governance of successive Governments—National and Labour—we have performed badly. That is an admission that we have performed badly in defence procurement something New Zealand First has been saying for a very very long time.It goes on further: "The Secretary of Defence said the ministry has strengthened every aspect of its management governance capability development delivery. It has also revised its guidance material processes templates and procedures"—da-da-da—which means that prior to that it was substandard for 9 long years. Prior to that it has been substandard and all the controversy that still swells around the light armoured vehicles (LAVs) that are parked in plastic wrap waiting to be sold—not able to be sold—is evidence of faulty and flawed procurement processes.But I am going to put one up to defend our Defence Force personnel. Had they been resourced in the first instance with staffing capability and expertise some of those things might not have happened. Had we not had Governments that were selecting for them and tightening the procurement parameters around purchases for them we might have come up with different decisions and I will point to one right now. The reason why there is a foreign military sales (FMS) application for the P-8 Poseidon is that the production line is about to close and it is about getting spots in the production line. That is why the Government has opened other stuff—a procurement that is actually ahead of other procurements that it should be behind. So this is putting the cart before the horse and this is a case of clear predetermination by the Government that we should buy the P-8s.We are saying that at $330 million an airframe we will end up trading in numbers for capability and capacity and that is a bad move. So why are we doing this? Why do we not look at the Kawasaki P-1 the Embraer Saab-based MPA? Why are we not looking at the marinised C-130 or the C-390? By entering into the FMS application now this Government has essentially done what Labour did with the LAVs—it has entered into a predetermined decision-making path that has proven so catastrophic in the past. Why are we doing this? Clearly because we have not learnt about the mistakes of defence procurement."