SpeechHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well it's an absolute pleasure to get the opportunity to speak this afternoon in the general debate and it's wonderful to actually get to follow on behind Mr Mitchell. Mr Mitchell—Mr Mitchell who has in the last 19 months been my opponent my opposition on matters defence and for whom I have—and I was very happy yesterday to finally get a question from Mr Mitchell as short as it was. But we shouldn't be so upset and worried because I think what Mr Mitchell has done is flown the white flag for National on defence. He tried in the early days silly little chips at the Government and me but he has since—and I've got to congratulate him on finally putting out his defence policy statement. Wonderful document—the problem was Mr Mitchell it was out of date the date that you released it.SPEAKER: Order! [Interruption] Order!Hon RON MARK: He—he"—released it and the only thing that stands out in it is that Mr Mitchell's going to take the National Party back to their 2016 Defence Capability Plan and back to their 2016 white paper. It's back to the future of doing nothing. Why is it that Mr Mitchell sits there so embarrassed about things because for all that time he's complained and whinged about the capability purchases that he when he was the Minister of Defence never completed.The one thing I can say is that National had a fantastic Minister of Defence in Gerry Brownlee. Gerry Brownlee got stuff done. Gerry Brownlee got the Ministry of Defence reorganised restructured. I've got to take my hat off and acknowledge Helene Quilter who unfortunately I've lost as Secretary of Defence but under her stewardship with the resources that Mr Brownlee got—total transformation. With the efforts of Mr Brownlee Aotearoa—the biggest ship to ever be owned by the New Zealand Navy—will arrive here in May next year and I'm going to invite Mr Brownlee to be there when that vessel comes in because he did the mahi he did the work. Network-enabled army—Mr Mitchell stands up and asks me a question about it yesterday. Well why didn't he just turn around and ask Mr Brownlee who got it through Cabinet?What do I find with Mr Mitchell's efforts—I come into Government and look through what he's done. Well that was a very short look because nothing had been done—nothing at all. What I did find though is a $158 million blowout and a project—get this—that New Zealand First and Labour signed off in 2007 that is the frigate system upgrade hadn't started hadn't started. Mr Mitchell's sitting there the big champion of the Defence Force. The lazy lazy useless Minister had it in his bottom drawer because he was too scared to take it to Cabinet because he couldn't get it across Mr Joyce.SPEAKER: Order! Order! He will resume his seat. I think the member knows how he breached Standing Orders. He will stand withdraw and apologise.Hon RON MARK: I withdraw and apologise Mr Speaker.So what we have is my first Cabinet paper I get to take up is asking for $148 million to do the work that Mr Mitchell had failed to do. Now the frigates are in Canada receiving the upgrade to their weapons systems and their defence systems they absolutely need. No thanks to Mr Mitchell—did nothing not a thing. But here's the other thing: we had to take the money. So where do we get the money from? We took it out of the littoral vessel. What does that mean? But that was the next question. Mr Mitchell knew Resolution was retiring knew Manawanui was going knew that we would have a capability gap of six years—no dive no hydro. Why is that important? Because when the Kaikōura earthquakes hit what did we have to deploy? Oh a hydro vessel. Why? To map the seabed so we knew if we could bring Canterbury in.Mr Mitchell's quite happy—Hon Member: I think he was flying around in helicopters.Hon RON MARK: —just flying around in Seasprite helicopters going to dinner at Papakura—eh Mr Mitchell? He went to dinner at Papakura in a Seasprite helicopter—never mind. But anyway—from his home in Whenuapai by the way. So he so knows that we have a gap—did nothing. So what did we do? In 11 months this Government purchased a ship had it modified and introduced into service and it's here now. Now everybody's looking at it as a strategic asset for the South Pacific.Look I could go on: network-enabled army. There's $5.2 billion worth of procurement running right now. P-8s—done. Hercules—getting done. Network-enabled army—done. Oh protected mobility—done. The King Airs four of them now flying at Ōhākea—done. New simulator for the NH90s—done. All of these projects and what did Mr Mitchell achieve? Absolutely zip and he wants to be the leader of the National Party. Please bring it on because he'll be asleep most of the time. He'll be doing nothing and we'll cakewalk through the next election because he's tired—very tired.SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."