Brownlee Gerry; Little AndrewHon GERRY BROWNLEE (National): So let's assume the auditor—sorry the inspector-general has been appointed. Immediately that person is going to think Well OK I better do something with this role." and the scope for that person under the bill is going to be quite considerable. How big does the Minister of Defence envisage that office might become bearing in mind that we have other inspector-generals who have quite large office operations? And what would be the circumstances if there is conflict between the view of the inspector-general about the scope that they're able to exercise and the concern that might be expressed to a Minister by the Chief of Defence for example about that role starting to impinge on the battle readiness that they need to instil as part of their personnel? In other words what are the brakes on this person? What are the constraints on this person? If it going to a point where there was clear conflict who's the adjudicator and who makes the decision about where to from there?Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Defence): Thank you Madam Chair. And I thank Mr Brownlee for his questions. Ultimately the size of the office will I imagine be something that will evolve over time—it won't be immediately apparent what their precise needs will be. But that member will be aware of the experience under successive Governments of the office for example of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security which originally started out as one fulltime-equivalent person—in fact no it was a part-time role with some part-time clerical assistance then it became a full-time role with some part-time clerical assistance. But during that time significant omissions happened and significant failures of oversight happened in relation to the intelligence agencies. Following an inquiry—an investigation conducted under the previous National Government—it led to that Government and the Prime Minister of the day now Sir John Key effectively recalibrating the office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. It's now an office of I think eight fulltime-equivalents—nine people I think for a pretty involved work programme for the intelligence agencies.I don't expect the Inspector-General of Defence would be anywhere near that size at least in its early years. It would have an important role to establish some processes and protocols and procedures. One of those is to understand how—I think clause 10 in the bill which is developing its relationship with other oversight bodies; it has to work out how that relationship works and how the other relevant jurisdictions around New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) works. Specifically the legislation requires the inspector-general to deal with us laid out in subclause (2) of clause 10 and indeed will also have to calibrate its actions in relation to military courts of inquiries.So there's a bit of work to do but I'm confident that it will establish a pattern of work and a responsible approach to work and we'll negotiate the resources needed to do that. That would be complementary to those other sources of authority and discipline within our NZDF. I don't have any concern that the Inspector-General of Defence will add anything to the concerns that front-line defence personnel would be worried about concerned about or thinking about as they acquit themselves in their roles because of the disciplined nature of their role the doctrinal training that they receive and the other rules including international conventions that they're subject to in that role. Those are things that defence personnel on the job are thinking about naturally as they conduct themselves. The powers of the role of the Inspector-General of Defence will not add a thing to that."