Mark RonHon RON MARK (Minister of Defence): Thank you Madam Chair. Please excuse me if you can't understand me; my voice is gone. I want to thank the select committee and particularly the chair and deputy chair for the work they have done and particularly for accompanying me on a couple of operational visits which proved to be very valuable—in the sense that they gave us not just the opportunity to meet with our own personnel in the field and to get a first-hand glimpse of the challenges they face in performing the work they have to do in the completion of those missions but also the opportunity to engage with our strategic partners and those of the coalition force allies we're working alongside of and the host nations in particular.It's been a very very good year for the Defence Force and veterans portfolios. I'm very proud of the progress we have made. We started out very strongly by focusing on a reset of our strategic defence policy and making sure that it's aligned with this coalition Government's views; that we're aligned with the Pacific Reset as announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs; and that we provided from that a good basis for conducting a review of the capability plan of the former Government in accordance with the coalition agreement. I've got to say that the new strategic defence policy statement is something I'm very proud of. I'm very proud of my team for the hard work that they have put in there and for the quite visionary document that we've finally produced which is framed in the context of community nation and world. The SDPS as it's come to be known has put some very strong focus on some key and crucial issues being space and cyber—very much deserved and very sensitive areas for New Zealand going forward.I think also the other area of focus that I steered the team into was to take a good long hard look at what climate change was bringing us with respect to the impact on our security and the consequences of climate change in the Pacific. That has been a very very valuable document. It was released recently and it has been very well received clearly within the Pacific and in Europe as well. I was a bit disappointed that I had to turn down an opportunity to speak at a Noumea conference recently but tomorrow I will be leading the discussion on climate change and the security implications of it—I head away to Fiji tomorrow—at that conference.Defence capability: of course we made the big announcement that this Government has signed off on the purchase of the replacements for the P-3 Orion fleet with the announcement of the decision to buy four P-8 Poseidon aircraft. That is—Andrew Bayly: Have you booked it in the accounts?Hon RON MARK: They are in the books—have a look—as you know when you make an announcement. That member should realise that his Government had nine long years to make a very sensitive and very important decision that affected one of our high-end capabilities and failed at every turn. So that member who wants to chip in and make a little name from himself should remind himself—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Hon RON MARK: —that his Government didn't have the ability to actually make that decision. CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order! Minister return to your discussion.Hon RON MARK: The other great decision we made—and it will come to fruition on 13 May—is that if one looks out one's office window one will see Manawanui moored up outside there. It arrives—the new dive hydro vessel; another proud purchase. Of course at the same time we kicked off the frigate systems upgrade which hadn't been kicked off which had blown out by $148 million but we sorted that problem and both Te Mana and Te Kaha are now in dock in Canada having that refit done—long overdue given that it was signed off in 2007 by a Labour - New Zealand First Government. But hey we're always cleaning up messes left behind aren't we?The other great things very quickly: we got the four new King Air 350-Bs; we have signed off on the NH90 simulator—it's being built now; and we've completed the defence capability plan which we're just working on for a final release. So all I'd say for the Opposition is that it's been good news—nothing but good news—in the defence space and I'm very much looking forward to announcing and presenting the new defence capability plan which I'm sure everyone will be very pleased and proud of.