Goff Phil: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 26 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3944. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]11.Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) to the Minister of Defence: Does the New Zealand Defence Force training of Iraqi Army troops include giving them the will to fight?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister of Defence): The New Zealand Government has made a decision to assist the Iraqi defence forces in their training because we assess that there is a threat to New Zealanders from Daesh. It is therefore appropriate that we assist the Iraqis to try to defeat Daesh. This question I think cheapens the desire of so many Iraqis to overcome that evil. We would not be there if the Iraqi Government had not made that request. We can only assume that that is a commitment from the Iraqi Government to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Might I also say that the New Zealand Defence Force has a very proud record of training in these sorts of conflicts—it goes right back to Malaya in the 1950s through to Afghanistan most recently. These sorts of loaded and facetious questions are I think very disrespectful to the New Zealand Defence Force.Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Would your office have allowed a question as the primary question that you judged to be facetious?Mr SPEAKER: I would not have used those words myself but in the answer that was given Mr Brownlee certainly addressed the question that was asked. If the member wants to take it further with a supplementary question I invite him to do so.Hon Phil Goff: Does he accept that the lack of will to fight which the United States’ defence secretary Ash Carter blamed for the failure of the Iraqi army results predominantly from the abysmal leadership of the Iraqi army and from the absolutely extensive corruption that undermines the will of the ordinary soldier to fight? And does he accept that neither of those things can be altered by the professional work of the New Zealand Army?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I am certainly not going to make any comments about the views of the United States Secretary of Defence. I will be meeting him shortly and I will have a further discussion with him. The rest of that question was based on Mr Goff’s own opinion of Iraqi forces. Although he is entitled to that opinion I am not making a comment on it. My view is that the New Zealand Defence Force is very very capable and professional. It has engaged in this exercise with some very specific aspects of the training mission that it will deliver—we think in the best interests of New Zealanders.Hon Phil Goff: When people like Dr Ron Smith from Waikato University who was a fervent supporter of deployment to Iraq now believe that it was a bad idea to go there what will it take to persuade the Government that the benefits of the training that we provide are too little and the risks too great to pay the price for being in the club?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: I very much doubt that the analysis that the professor has relied on would be as good as the analysis that the New Zealand Government has made its decision based on and continues to support.Hon Phil Goff: What assessment has he given of the risks now facing the New Zealand Defence Force approximately 100 kilometres away from Islamic State (IS) forces in Ramadi and is that assessment such that if the risk is regarded as considerable he would reverse his position and bring those troops home?Hon GERRY BROWNLEE: Answering the first part of the question: considerably better information than the member has.Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Somebody with the temerity to accuse a questioner of being facetious then gives an answer that can be described only in exactly the same way—Mr SPEAKER: Order! No no no—I listened again quite carefully to the question. In fact there were two questions asked. The Minister has chosen to address the first one. It may not be to the satisfaction of the member but it was certainly addressed.