Equally, to the brave men and women of our Defence Force who have served in Afghanistan and elsewhere, we express our sincerest gratitude. I can add to that the brave men and women of the New Zealand Police who worked so tirelessly to help build and train the Afghan national police. Your hard work and professionalism under such harsh conditions is something that all New Zealand should be proud of. The difficult situation facing the Afghan people today does not mean that the amazing work that you have done over the last 20 years was for nothing, as some have suggested. Your work saved lives. You built infrastructure. You built schools. You built water systems. You enabled young girls to go to school. That counts. 