Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): It's a pleasure to stand and take a call on this the Budget debate. I have to acknowledge the previous speaker Jamie Strange and his passion for the Budget—telling us all that he takes it to bed as bedtime reading. That's taking it to a new level of commitment so well done.I want to take a call first of all on defence—and I'm conscious of the fact I've only got 10 minutes and I've actually got two important portfolios one being defence and one being justice. I want to address defence first and first of all acknowledge all our Defence Force personnel all the personnel in the Ministry of Defence and the work that they do. No greater privilege have I ever had than actually being their Minister prior to our coming into Opposition.I want to address some issues with the defence Minister and just say that when I came into Opposition I made it very clear to him and I said I will support you in making sure that you advance some critically important investment that the Defence Force needs around capability."That relates directly to the replacement of the P3 Orion which has been an incredible and faithful workhorse for our air force and defence forces and country over 50-plus years. But it's no longer possible to do upgrades on them and actually they just need to be replaced. We received a letter from the American Congress saying it was last orders for the P8 Poseidon under the military sales programme. The P8 Poseidon after going through our procurement process with the Ministry of Defence—led by Mike Yardley who's done an outstanding job—emerged without a doubt as our preferred option in terms of the P3 replacement. It would give us an enhanced capability. It would allow us to do more and extend our capability beyond what the P3 could do. It would mean that we would close our capability gap with our partners and particularly our Five Eyes partners and coalition partners. And it would actually provide that interoperability that we need too when our personnel are deploying overseas.This was a critically important acquisition and I knew it was going to be tough because I was working it through the process myself. I'd had meetings with the Prime Minister I had meetings with the finance Minister and I had meetings with Treasury to find out how we could actually book the cost of this because it's a big expense for the Government. But I was committed to it and I was determined that we were going to make sure that we procured the P8 Poseidon.Part of that process also meant getting support from our partners and the US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis was extremely supportive in terms of working with us and working with Mike Yardley and the team at the Ministry of Defence to be able to smooth out the payment schedule. They also gave us an extension on the decision as well which is important because they're committed to us and they can see the importance of us having this type of equipment in the future as well.But what I've been very disappointed about is that it appears to have stalled. I can't get any clear information about whether or not the Minister has taken a Cabinet paper to Cabinet. We're now nine months into the new administration; this should have been done right at the front end. Actually now it's starting to affect the morale within the New Zealand Defence Force—not just the procurement actually of the P8 Poseidon but also the literal capability and the decision has been delayed on that as well. It just creates uncertainty for people that join the defence forces with an expectation that they will be supported by the Government and an expectation that actually they will be given the best-possible equipment that of course we can afford as a small nation. These things have stalled.I was really concerned because during the election campaign when Grant Robertson was asked where he would find savings the only area he really highlighted was defence. I'm fearful that that is going to come to pass because during his Budget debate speech the only thing that he could point to—the only thing that he could highlight—in terms of investment into our New Zealand defence forces was $1 million going into the Limited Service Volunteers programme. Now I'm a huge supporter of that programme. It's very important. The staff on it whether it be social development or defence do an outstanding job and I just want to pay tribute and acknowledge them—but $1 million? If the finance Minister can only stand in this House and talk about $1 million going into the Limited Services Volunteers programme—which is not actually a core business of defence at all. It's a very important programme that defence support and run alongside social development. It's not one of their core objectives or part of their core business and that's all that the Minister could get up and talk about.So I just want to put it out there and say that we were very disappointed with this year's Budget. The only real expenditure was around operational costs and that's the growing operational costs that any Government needs to meet. That's basically all that's being done and this is from a Minister that said before coming into Parliament that they should be moving towards 2 percent of GDP and that there should be a reinstatement of a strike capability and a heavy investment into personnel property and equipment. That is not happening. We are not seeing that at all in the defence portfolio.I just want to come quickly to justice. This week to me has been astounding. We had our Estimates hearing yesterday on justice and it's become very very clear that the incoming Minister of Justice just simply does not have a plan. Now I found it extraordinary yesterday in the Estimates hearing that he was attacked by one of his own MPs—a Labour MP—about the lack of investment that's going into community law centres. I mean there is a 0.3 percent increase in funding for the justice sector when they're talking about doing massive justice reforms. We've seen very early on the Minister yesterday fail—fail at the first hurdle—at taking the first part of the reform which he believes deeply in. He takes it through a Cabinet committee process. It's obvious that he had support from the coalition parties and then on the day of the Cabinet paper being taken to Cabinet there is a meeting with the Rt Hon Winston Peters and he has to cancel the process withdraw the paper and withdraw the repeal of the three-strikes legislation.We were happy about that because in the last three weeks you would've seen our leader the Hon Simon Bridges run a passionate campaign around preventing that three-strikes legislation being repealed. There's a simple reason for this and I'm going to give an example. There was an offender—he was arrested in Hawke's Bay—who broke into a home and sexually assaulted a lady in her 80s. He then committed a home invasion with the intent of sexually assaulting a woman in her 70s. Had they been successful in repealing the three-strikes legislation that offender would have been eligible for bail and been back out in the community in January of this year. With the three-strikes legislation remaining in place he's not eligible for bail until 2026. That's why we were so passionate about running the sort of campaign that you saw that effectively in the end saw New Zealand First bend to that pressure and come out and say that they would not support the repeal of the three-strikes legislation.The thing that really came home to me yesterday in our Estimates hearing was this: the justice Minister doesn't have a plan. There is no new funding in terms of reducing crime. There is a confused set of policies that are emerging from corrections where you've got a corrections Minister that seems to be paralysed in terms of indecision and where there's a growing need for capacity within corrections and there's a policy that's come out around 600 pop-up beds. That's not going to meet the need. You've got a justice Minister that's talking about repealing the three-strikes legislation and diluting our bail laws so that we're letting out more dangerous violent recidivist offenders—because that's who's in our prisons. It's not low-level—not shoplifters not people who are found with a cannabis cigarette. The offenders—the people who are in our jails—are ones that have got multiple convictions and are normally violent.Then you've got a police Minister that's standing here in terms of the justice portfolio and saying "We're going to recruit 1800 more police officers." but can't actually define what a front-line police officer is. He is telling us that it's someone that sits in a back office doing a forensic accounting role—and I'm not diminishing the importance of that. That's an important role but I'm telling you right now that they're not capable of deploying to someone's house when they've got someone trying to break in through the back door for a home invasion. We've had no clarity around how those police officers are going to be recruited and trained.So all that we're seeing coming out of the justice sector at the moment is a confused range of policies that are counterintuitive and work against one another and that probably highlights very clearly in the House today why you saw the justice Minister and the New Zealand First justice spokesman unable to agree in the House."