Burton Mark: Budget Debate 
Burton Mark: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:20836] 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Defence) 
: 
 What a pleasure it is to take a call in this 2005 Budget debate—I was going to say it was the 19th Budget of Michael Cullen—because never ever have the contrasts been so clear and never have the alternatives been so stark in the area of defence. This Budget is all about maintaining core Labour values. It is about maintaining a strong long-term credible fiscal stance being fair and being inclusive. It is about helping Kiwis to build a long-term stake for themselves their children and their grandchildren in the future of our country and it is about putting in place and building on conditions for growth. 
This Government is committed to securing a future for future generations of New Zealanders—and we mean all New Zealanders not just the handful at the top of the pile who would get their hundreds of dollars a week in extra tax breaks from the likes of John Key at the expense of so many other things in the economy. I will come to a few of those things that would pay for John Key and his mates at the top of the pile to have the big tax cuts. 
I am proud to be part of a Government that has continued to make the long-term investment in those things that Kiwis care about—not only for themselves but for their neighbours and for their kids. Labour’s long-term investment in our health system is $4 billion of additional spending over the next 4 years. That will be pumped into a health system that is getting better and better in terms of the provision of services—reducing the times that people are waiting for key procedures despite an ageing population and giving our older people access to the joint surgery and cataract operations that are so important to their quality of life. 
But as the Minister of Defence I will spend most of my contribution talking about the good news for defence in this Budget. It comes after 5 years of rebuilding from the wreckage left behind by the negligent National Government of the 1990s. That wreckage started with the “mother of all Budgets” which thankfully many Kiwis have forgotten. They have blanked it out of their memories because it wreaked so much chaos and suffering on New Zealanders and New Zealand families— 
Georgina Beyer 
: We’re talking about psychological damage here! 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: That is right—psychological damage. Along with so many other parts of the New Zealand economy and along with so much of the infrastructure of support to low-income families and the vulnerable defence took the hit too. Over $112 million in that Budget was stripped out of the defence budget and for years afterward the decline continued—more and more was stripped out. Occasionally a promise was made that the National Government would do something but there was never money there. 
I will give members an example. Members on the other side of this House bang on about the C130 upgrade that they were going to do. I challenge any National MP to stand up and point to where the funding was ever voted or allocated for any such project. Like so much of what we have seen more recently that was hot air—talk but no commitment. What we have seen each year since Labour became the Government is money pumped into pay increases for personnel. In 2000 we put in place for the first time a coherent defence policy framework. In 2001 we put in place a defence statement that defined the structure of our forces. In 2003 we put in place a 10-year development plan to rebuild for the first time in this country in a coordinated cross-service way a defence policy and structure based on a rational policy framework. Then we put in place a long-term funding package built into a cross-service coordinated acquisition programme to build up the equipment across the three services that are required for a coherent defence force. 
In addition to that $3 billion commitment made over the first 5 years in this Budget there is $4.6 billion of new expenditure. With the exception of $209 million that is additional capital for the back-end of the long-term development plan for acquisitions almost $4.4 billion dollars—$4380 million—will go into defence over the next 10 years to increase personnel numbers enhance training and retention and maintain and develop the infrastructure so much of which was neglected and run down right through the 1990s. 
We are paying the price for that now. This Government has made the commitment to fix the mess left behind by the former National Government. We are increasing the stocks and reserves of equipment and ammunition. Anyone who has an interest should go back through the annual reports of the Defence Force. Some of the platitudes that we hear uttered from members on the other side of this House about some of the treasured acquisitions and capabilities that they were allegedly so committed to could not operate year after year because the defence force did not have the means to get in the air and did not have the ammunition to practise with. That was the legacy of the 1990s for this country. This Government set about fixing it from day one— 
Georgina Beyer 
: As it usually has to. 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: And we have continued to do so as—as the member says—we usually have to. Labour is always having to fix things—it is in the history of this country. Right through the last century Labour Governments have had to come in and fix up the neglect and shambles left behind and nowhere more so than in defence. I challenge the members opposite not to whinge and whine and not just to take cheap shots and flicks at the men and women who are our defence force when because they push themselves and their equipment to the absolute limit of their capability things occasionally break. Well that is not a surprise if they push a piece of equipment so hard because they are out there doing humanitarian aid and recovery work. 
When something goes wrong what does the defence force get from the members opposite? It does not get support. Those men and women are out there putting their lives on the line working to the absolute limit and pushing themselves and their equipment and they get cheap nasty political point-scoring. No other country does it. During the tsunami crisis every country doing airlifts as part of that humanitarian effort had planes with “unplanned maintenance issues” as our engineers like to call them—in other words something broke and they had to fix it. They were not sitting in a nice international airport with all the engineering kit lined up where they needed it; they were out in very difficult circumstances. Did we hear a single word of cheap political point-scoring from the US the Australians or the Canadians? There was not a word. Only New Zealand Tory politicians stoop to that level—they put down their country and put down the men and women who are out there actually doing the work we should be so proud of. Our defence forces are earning our country a high reputation everywhere else in the world but back here they get “quipped” and are subject to cheap nasty political point-scoring. 
What does National offer in return? I shared the alternative with the House during question time this afternoon. National has had 5½ years of quipping and of showing all sorts of criticism of what this Government has done with billions of dollars of investment and a strategic plan for defence. 
Darren Hughes 
: So what have they come up with? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: Well Dr Brash said 4 weeks ago that no National did not have a policy at the moment but that it would have one before the election. Well it does. I have to say that the National members made progress and within 10 days they had their policy and had announced it. Dr Brash came through. His defence spokesperson announced the policy on National Radio—I was in the room at the time. He said that National will have a “Hone hui”—a bit of a talk—after the election. After nearly 6 years of planning National will have a review. National will ask people in the defence force what they want and it will get it for them. National does not know why or what it will do but it will have a “Hone hui”. That is the sum total—a review. New Zealanders can go to bed tonight feeling safe that if they vote for a National Government they will have a review to defend them. 
I say that this country deserves better. I know that it is a hackneyed phrase but there was a once-great National Party whose members would have been shamefaced to come in here or go to a radio station and say that its defence policy was a “Hone hui.” Labour can do better and we are doing better. New Zealanders deserve better and that is why they will not have a bar of a Tory-led Government.