Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to take a call on the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill tonight. I want to firstly acknowledge Minister Ron Mark because on coming into Government—I was very concerned as the outgoing Minister that the Labour finance Minister had signalled very clearly to the country that the first area that would be looked to make cuts in was defence because we'd spent a lot of time in Government doing our defence white paper and putting our defence capability plan together. I was very concerned that they'd start to make cuts in that. I spoke to the Minister and said We'd support you as long as you can keep the investment flowing." Up to date they have adopted our defence capability plan and they continue to make the investment where we felt it was very important in personnel equipment and of course the regeneration of defence property. However when I get to the part of the speech where I'm going to talk about property I am concerned about some of the things that were signalled during the Estimates debate. Firstly though—procurement of aircraft. The Government has signalled or the Minister has signalled that the replacements of our C-130 Hercules are going to be the C130J-30 Super Hercules. The thing that I was concerned about with this process—and it relates to feedback that I've received directly from manufacturers that had showed an interest in this process including the Japanese Government. They actually deserved to be treated with a bit of respect throughout the procurement process because they actually had a very good platform that I believe should have actually—our Ministry of Defence when we were in Government we spent a lot of money and we made a big investment to make sure that we had a world-class procurement system because historically in New Zealand one of the issues has been—and the Minister raised this in the hearing—that we have made poor decisions on procurement. The latest example that he gave of that was the NH90s. Let's be honest it was a painful process bringing those NH90s into service; there's no doubt about that. But now if you were to ask any of our Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel they would tell you that it's an outstanding platform that brings a lot more capability not only to our own service but also to our partners whom we often have to operate with. The one interesting point that I made—because the Minister was highly critical and was pointing the finger at the National Government around poor procurement decisions. I thought "That's ironic." because every poor procurement decision that has been made in New Zealand for our New Zealand defence forces has been made by the Labour-led Government often in partnership with New Zealand First. Actually the NH90s are a clear example of that. They were a poor decision made by a Labour Government supported by New Zealand First. The good decisions have actually been made by National the National Government. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to be able to correct the record on that.The Embraer KC-390: very very good aircraft. Yes I accept the fact that it's only been brought into service for the Brazilian Air Force. It's a new platform it's new technology and it's state of the art. Embraer actually brought one of the KC-390s down to New Zealand to Whenuapai. I went up there with the Chief of Defence Force and the Chief of Air Force. We went on the aircraft we went for a test flight I spoke to the pilot—so I spoke right from the loadmasters through to the pilots. They loved it. They said "This is new technology; this is modern technology." I feel that we should have used our procurement process to actually go through and make sure that we've been fair to every manufacturer in every country that had engaged with us—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to report progress to the House.House resumed.Bill reported with progress.Report adopted.The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m."