Phil Goff checks out a machinegun during a handover of Pinzgauer light vehicles at Trentham in Upper Hutt. Picture / Mark Mitchell
Defence Minister Phil Goff made light work of a vehicle handover to the New Zealand Army yesterday.
He was presenting the Army with the final delivery of the light operational vehicles purchased by the Government for $93 million.
The first of the 321 Pinzgauer vehicles were delivered in
2004 but had a fault in their transmission systems. Mr Goff said the manufacturer had solved the problem at no extra cost.
He said the vehicles had already proved their worth on deployments in the Solomon Islands, East Timor and with the SAS in Afghanistan's demanding terrain.
Mr Goff announced that troops serving in Afghanistan will come under Nato command this week.
The New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team, based in Bamiyan Province, had previously come under US command as part of Operation Enduring Freedom.
"[The team] will continue to carry out the excellent work it has performed on a daily basis since 2003," he said.
Earlier, Mr Goff had words of praise for the multinational peacekeeping force in East Timor despite loud criticism from a prominent local politician, East Timor's parliamentary Speaker Fransisco Guterres, who claimed the peacekeeping forces had failed to curb violence which had surged again in recent weeks.
Mr Goff said Mr Guterres was closely aligned with ousted former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and had a "political axe to grind". East Timor's politicians should instead look at their own behaviour, he said.
