O'Connor SimonExternal SectorSIMON O'CONNOR (Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee): Thank you very much Mr Chair. I'm going to focus effectively on three entities today who delivered two reports to one select committee. So I'd like to begin talking around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and if I might—it'll be a bit of a theme as I touch on these various groups—thank the team at MFAT for the work that they do. As we learnt—though some of us may have already known—there're 57 New Zealand posts in over 50 countries with only 230 diplomats. I mention that because when you deal with other diplomats from other countries—say America Canada Great Britain—they have much much larger service personnel. So our people are few but they do a remarkable job across the world in representing New Zealand. We took quite a bit of time going through how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is working and what its focuses are and by and large—and I think it's primarily coming out of Government and the period of time that we are focusing on being in the National Party time—we're very happy with what they are doing and the focuses that they have.Three elements though leapt out at us. One was around the whole question of Manus Island. The committee was very interested in what is happening at Manus and in particular what is New Zealand's understanding of the situation there. It became very clear and has continued to become very clear that there are multiple agencies that we as a select committee need to engage with—and we have done so over the recent weeks. But what we've been particularly interested in is the Government offering to take a number of people from this island. Well what is the nature of these people? We want to understand and it wasn't so much disappointing that we didn't get the answers that we were hoping for I think as a committee. So we're going to continue engaging in that and particularly for the safety and security of the realm and better understanding of the people in New Zealand of this offer that the Government's put forward.As you might expect we asked a number of questions around the supposedly Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. A lot has been lauded about this new agreement. Really apart from the words Comprehensive and Progressive" added to the title very little has changed and the committee was able to delve in to that a little with officials from MFAT to understand in effect that little has changed. I'd encourage members to have a look at the report.The other element we did touch on briefly was really around New Zealand's engagement with other countries—obviously our interest around Brexit around free-trade agreements. I'd register my disappointment in what we do seem to see from this Government—and it does seem to be one particular member from a political party who seems almost fascinated by Russia and for some reason a free-trade agreement with Russia over others. New Zealand's a very open environment but why that country or area's being prioritised over others is unclear and I'd put on the record again my concern over what's happened in recent weeks particularly around Salisbury and the New Zealand inaction that has followed.We heard from the Ministry of Defence and the New Zealand Defence Force together—really quite fascinating and I think it's appropriate as I stand here today actually news has just come out that CDF the Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Tim Keating is actually announcing his standing down. I'm sure other opportunities will come up but I'd like to thank him for his service in that role. I'd also like to take the opportunity to actually thank the New Zealand Defence Force who looked after myself and several other colleagues who a couple of weeks ago were actually in Kabul in Afghanistan and in Baghdad in Iraq. What our guys are doing overseas is quite tremendous both there in the Persian Gulf and in other sectors.Look the defence portfolio is an enormous spend and I think the committee was quite conscious that we have a new Government now that—and we've heard it in some of the discussions prior—is promising everything to everyone. And the thing is that we—Hon Scott Simpson: Delivering nothing.SIMON O'CONNOR: And delivering nothing to date—in fact very little legislation even as we are finding in the House. But one of the great challenges is where all this money is going to come from and we did discuss as a committee the whole question of the P-8A Poseidon—so that's our surveillance aircraft. We do need to upgrade the fleet. We have basically 50 to 60-year-old planes at the moment. We know we need new heavy-lifting planes like the Hercules. We've got a number of options there we need to explore. As you might expect all of these cost huge amounts of money. That's already been signalled as important by the defence forces and the Ministry of Defence.On the really positive front—because I try to be a positive person—the purchase of the new Modular Assault Rifle System – Light or the MARS-L firearms have gone down very well with the military. I understand they're been integrated into the forces at the moment.The last thing—and it is a call to the Government—is I did raise with those in front of us the need to maybe bring the Invictus Games over here to support our disabled troops. We'd love to see the Government pick that up."