"Exactly," he continued to proclaim.
He then briefly consulted with his lawyer Quentin Duff.
"Sir, I've got written instructions that he's ready to be sent back to Australia," Duff told the judge.
Zhang was then led away back into the cells, but before doing so he turned to a tearful family member in the public gallery and with a big smile gave two thumbs up.
The alleged fraud he is accused of is linked to a luxury New South Wales golf course and resort in which the Australian Government claims it was defrauded of $10.5 million.
The total loss to the Australian Government is alleged to be more than $19m.
Zhang was arrested by the New Zealand Police when officers attended a minor car crash in April before an Australian warrant for his arrest was endorsed by Judge Ajit Singh.
The Chinese-born Australian citizen had left New South Wales in 2009 when police and tax officials were looking for him under a search warrant.
He disappeared from authorities for a decade.
It later became apparent that Zhang had been living at a high-end rental property north of Auckland.
It is not clear how long he was living in New Zealand.
According to the Australian Taxation Office, Zhang owned the Chinese construction company Hightrade. More than 100 of its subsidiary companies collapsed 10 years ago.
The company's finance head, Simon Chan, also left Australia and has not returned.
The ATO was looking at Hightrade for the way it behaved during the construction of the Pokolbin golf course and its resort in the Hunter Valley.
The Australian Government alleged the construction group inflated the cost of building the resort by more than $115m.
Hightrade executive Song (Peter) Chang was charged with tax fraud.
Chang was jailed in 2017 for five and a half years for conspiracy to defraud the Australian Government.