Tisch Lindsay; Muller ToddExternal SectorThe CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Members we now move to the votes in the external sector and the question is that Vote Customs Vote Defence Vote Defence Force Vote Foreign Affairs and Trade and Vote Official Development Assistance stand part of the schedules.TODD MULLER (Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee): I am looking forward to taking a call on this bundle of impressive portfolios that we discussed at the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee. I would like to kick off first if I may with the Estimates hearing we had last month in respect of foreign affairs and trade specifically. We heard of a significant appropriation of just on half a billion dollars for the upcoming year an increase of 8 percent reflecting the priority that the Government puts on trade. Obviously Trade Agenda 2030 is a key part of our priority to support export growth for New Zealand businesses around the world. That is a $91.3 million commitment over 4 years and $27 million of that will be to support the trade resources both here and in-market of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade which will go a long way towards our broader strategy of 90 percent of New Zealand's current goods export being covered by free-trade agreements by 2030.In our hearing we heard that the initiative the spending is going to focus on the establishment of a high commission in Sri Lanka. As somebody who is a former Fonterra executive that is a very good thing to hear because there are significant dairy—and other—interests in Sri Lanka for New Zealand. It is good that we will now have a high commission based in Sri Lanka an establishment of an embassy in Ireland and I was also pleased to hear the additional support we are providing for the New Zealand Antarctic Institute.We had quite a significant conversation around non-tariff barriers and again I was very pleased to hear from the Minister the commitment we are making through our Trade Agenda 2030 to invest in-market to support New Zealand businesses to deal with these increasing non-tariff barriers. We have 85000 exporting companies in this country and the interests of the 85000 exporters on which this country relies so heavily in terms of our ongoing standard of living sometimes—particularly when I am listening to the other side—get lost in the debate. It is great to know that this Government has an agenda to particularly focus on ensuring that they have as easy access to the markets of their opportunity in future as possible and I am delighted to see that we are investing to enable that to happen.We had a very good hearing in defence. The Hon Mark Mitchell who is doing a superb job taking over that portfolio and is well respected by all of the committee—and I am sure I can speak for all of them in that respect—talked to the Vote Defence Force appropriation of $3.38 billion. A significant component of that will be new and upgraded military equipment as part of our commitment outlined in the defence white paper of $20 billion worth of capability over the next 15 years.One of the areas where I was particularly pleased that our committee traversed with the Minister is that not only are we spending an extraordinary amount of capital to support New Zealand's security interests globally but also the way that capital is going to be deployed and how we are going to procure that significant investment on behalf New Zealand taxpayers is very impressive. We heard that a number of experts are now working on improving the Defence Force's capability around procurement—a lift up to 40 people. Certainly from my commercial perspective I guess it is often an area that in the commercial world is under-invested in and it is great to see that the Ministry of Defence sees the importance of ensuring that we have very good people to underpin what will be a significant $20 billion procurement programme over the next few years.Finally in my last few seconds I do want to acknowledge the contribution of Minister Tim Macindoe when we discussed customs. We heard about the updated and upgraded SmartGate and the Joint Border Management System. A number of these projects were seen at the time as sort of highly technical but they do facilitate trade and business and reflect this Government's priority in ensuring that the businesses that ultimately make the value and money and success of this country are enabled to the greatest extent in terms of their engagement with the world and the opportunities that are in front of them. Across the three portfolios we heard in spades the commitment of the Government to deliver on that. Thank you.