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It’s great to be addressing the New Zealand Defence Industry Association today. Since we met back in March at your quarterly meeting, a lot has happened in defence in the last eight months.

I’d like to begin by thanking our hosts IPANZ and Deloitte for bringing together senior public servants, partners from across the public and private sectors, and many of you who took the time to help shape this new Act.

Today, Anzac Day, marks the anniversary of the first New Zealand and Australian landings on the Gallipoli peninsula on the 25th of April 1915. We remember those New Zealanders who fought and died here 98 years ago. We also pay our respects to the Turks who were fighting to defend their homeland, and our allies who fought beside us. We also commemorate the dead and those who have served in all conflicts in which New Zealand has taken part.

E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga karanga maha e huihui nei

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

There is no more poignant and evocative place for any New Zealander to be present than at dawn on Anzac day, on the Gallipoli peninsula.

It’s a place you’ve never been to before, but at the same time you’ve grown up with. It’s a place of sadness, but a place that makes you very proud. It’s a place which for New Zealanders distils and lays clear all the qualities which we hold dear in our national character.

E ngā Mana, E Ngā Iwi, E Ngā Reo Tēnā Koutou Tēnā Koutou, Tēnā Koutou Katoa

Your Excellency, the Governor General of New Zealand Sir Jerry Mateparae, and Lady Janine; Dr Habiba Sarabi, Governor of Bamyan; Lt General Rhys Jones, Chief of Defence Force; Helene Quilter, Secretary of Defence; Peter Marshall, Commissioner of Police, Friends of New Zealand and Afghanistan.

I want to acknowledge the service men and women of the NZDF who are here today as well as the thousands who have served here before you.

Your Excellency the Governor General of New Zealand and Lady Janine Mataparae, Governor Sarabi, Lt General Rhys Jones, Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Helene Quilter, and Police Commissioner Peter Marshall.

To all those friends of New Zealand and Bamyan Province who gather here, today we pay tribute to the eight New Zealanders and 23 Afghans who have given their lives in the service of Bamyan Province, and whose names are commemorated on this joint memorial.

It’s a pleasure to be addressing the New Zealand Defence Industry Association again.

I want to focus my remarks today on a subject close to your interests: how to deliver results while managing the rising costs of doing business.

It is a topic close to the heart of our Defence Force as it juggles significant reform, making savings efficiencies, maintaining capability, while also dealing with the rising cost of defence.

Good evening,

Thank you to the co-hosts of this event: Dr Geoff Perry, Dean of the Business and Law Faculty School and David McGregor of the Auckland and Northland Territorial Forces Employer Council.

Also welcome to Brigadier Sean Trengrove the director of the NZDF Reserve Forces and other present and past members of the NZDF.

And I also especially wish to welcome to the employers who have Defence Force reservists on their staff, and also all of those from AUT.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

Introduction

I wish to talk about how New Zealand is managing the effect on its defence force of the most challenging economic conditions seen in generations.

This is a challenge which politicians and policy makers, militaries, and industry are grappling with worldwide and of particular relevance to those of us here today.

The global financial crisis and subsequent fiscal and sovereign debt crises are having a profound and lasting effect on economies in the developed world.

Mr Secretary General, Colleagues

El Alamein, Egypt

Speech by the Honourable Dr Jonathan Coleman, Minister of Defence

Distinguished guests, veterans, serving New Zealand Defence Force Personnel, ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to address you on this significant occasion.

We are gathered here to commemorate New Zealand's part in the Second Battle of El Alamein, and more generally, the North African campaign of the Second World War.

It gives me great pleasure to be given the opportunity to open this newly installed Medal Repository here at the National Army Museum today.

This Museum stands so proudly at the southern entrance way into the Central Plateau and is a fitting national memorial to some 33,000 New Zealand Servicemen and women who have given their lives in the service of this Nation.

It is by coincidence but also fitting that we open this repository in a week the national is debating the recent actions and bravery of New Zealand servicemen under fire.

Kia Ora Tatou, Good Afternoon

Your excellency the Governor General, Sir Jerry Mateparae,

Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, Parliamentary colleagues,

Members of the New Zealand Defence Force, and most importantly of all, the loved ones, family, whanau and friends of Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer and Lance Corporal Rory Malone.

It is with great respect and gratitude, but mostly with an overwhelming sense of sadness that I address you here today.

Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I really appreciate this opportunity to address you today.

I thank the organisers, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Dr John Chipman, and our local hosts, the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Singapore, for the enormous efforts they have made to ensure the success of this Dialogue.

I was appointed to the New Zealand Defence portfolio towards the end of last year and this is my first Shangri-La Dialogue.

Your Excellency the Governor General

Your Excellencies: Ambassador Etienne
              
                               Ambassador Meister

Thank you Burgemeester Evrard

Your excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Today’s ceremony is a chance to reflect on the sacrifices of a generation of young New Zealanders who gave their lives in Flanders.

It is also a time to acknowledge the people of Flanders and Belgium for looking after the sons of New Zealand in remembrance of that terrible experience of almost a century ago.

The ties that bind our countries were forged here and will never be broken.

Secretary General

It is a pleasure to attend my first meeting of NATO’s North Atlantic Council with its ISAF partners and I look forward to working with you and all my colleagues around the table in the months and years ahead.

Secretary General, today’s discussion provides an important opportunity to further refine and shape the strategic plan for Afghanistan that will be adopted at the Chicago Summit in just over three months time.