 Good morning everyone. A very warm welcome to the Honorable Henry Poonah, Prime Minister of the Koch Islands and his wife, Mrs. Akaiti Poonah. I would also like to acknowledge the Honorable Patricia Forsyth AM, the Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand, and also of course our Vice Chancellor, Professor Brian Schmidt, who will introduce the Honorable Henry Poonah. Before we start, I would like to acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay my respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people past, present and emerging. My name is Tony Erskine and I'm director of the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs here at the ANU. Thank you all very much for coming. It's a great privilege to welcome our distinguished guests, which the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs is very proud to host. Now please join me in welcoming our Vice Chancellor, Professor Brian Schmidt. Thank you Tony and thank you ladies and gentlemen. Tony, thank you very much for your acknowledgement to country. People have been meeting on these lands for more than 20 millennia and indeed ANU is the place that Canberra gets its name and our new center of campus, Cambry, was gifted to us by the local indigenous people in recognition that this is now a meeting place for more than 20,000 people from around Australia, around our region and around the world. So it's a great privilege to be able to meet here today on their lands. Of course, I'd particularly like to welcome our special guest, the Honorable Henry Puna, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands and Mrs. Akaiti Puna. Welcome. It is great to have you both back to our campus. I'd also like to welcome Patricia Forsyth AM, the Australian High Commission New Zealand and of course many other representatives from the Pacific region and representatives of the diplomatic corps. Today, I think it's also important to acknowledge that it is the 11th of November and it's Remembrance Day. We commemorate and remember all those who have fallen in wartime and acknowledge that our freedom comes from their ultimate sacrifice. As is custom, we would normally pause at 11 o'clock for one minute of silence. As this will occur during the Prime Minister's address, I think it is appropriate that we pause now and so I would like everyone to join me and stand for one minute of silence. To remember those who have fallen, we will remember them. Thank you. Please be seated. The Australian National University has a long-standing relationship with the Pacific region. One of our founding principles of our university was to increase and strengthen Australia's understanding of and connections with our neighbors. In 1946, the Pacific Region Institute was one of the four founding areas of our university and it continues to be a key focus today. As Australia's national university, we have a responsibility to engage with the Pacific, a region that has profound influence on our past and will continue to play a major role in our future. Next year, the Cook Islands will host the Climate Change Action Pacific Partnership Conference. From my perspective, climate change is one of the biggest challenges humanity faces, indeed probably the most significant challenge right now and I welcome this conference as an opportunity to hold discussions and plan action to address climate change. We will also be launching our Pacific strategy, partnering with countries and institutions to further develop our Pacific research, education and engagement. Earlier this year, ANU signed an agreement with the University of the South Pacific, creating a gateway for our students and researchers to learn from each other and share knowledge and ideas. Our university has always been a place where students have the chance to learn and broaden their horizons before they go out into the world and change it on their terms. It is a great privilege to host Prime Minister of Pune for today's lecture, to share his insights into the Pacific and our region. He is a graduate from the University of Auckland and the University of Tasmania, giving him a unique view of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific and the strong connections that connect us all. Prime Minister Pune has led the Cook Islands since his election in 2010. Prime Minister, I know that you spent a short time in 1980 on our campus and it is great to welcome you back. It has changed a fair bit and your visit today provides us with a unique opportunity to broaden our understanding of the forces and influence that are shaping your country. So please join me in welcoming the Honourable Henry Pune, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, to speak. I remember the last time I was here. I appeared in a moot exercise before a real judge from New South Wales and I was nervous as hell. And if I was nervous then I certainly am more nervous this morning. But I want to start my short address with a chant or a pei from the island of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands. Please don't feel that I'm chasing you out of the room. Just bear with me. It goes like this. Roughly translated into Australian, it goes like this. My beauty is my own. From the rays of the golden morning sun. To exalt my people and my traditions. For now, for tomorrow and for always. Kirana and good morning everyone. To our friends from academia, from the Australian government and from the wider community. May I say that all protocol is observed and welcome you all to this short address. I've just rendered a traditional chant from the island of Aitutaki in the Cook Islands, which is well known in our country. But now may I first pay my respects and acknowledge the traditional custodians of this place and on whose traditional lands we meet. The Ngunawal people. To elders past, present and future. Greetings and Kirana. I also want to acknowledge the dignitaries that are here today. The Australian High Commissioner to New Zealand and to the Cook Islands. It's good to see you Patricia. And to a friend of the Cook Islands who has played a part, a big part in having us here in Canberra, Ewan McDonald, a former High Commissioner to New Zealand and to the Cook Islands. Kirana my friend. And to Professor Tony Erskine and Vice Chancellor Professor Brian Smith. Thank you so much for the warm welcome. It is a great pleasure for me to accept the kind invitation of ANU to visit today and to share a few words about the Cook Islands, our relationship with Australia and the future. At this point in time, I wish to acknowledge this very special day in our collective history. On this day over a century ago in 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. May I on behalf of my government and all of the people of the Cook Islands join with you and the government and people of Australia in paying our deepest respects to the memories of all those brave men and women, sons and daughters of Australia, who paid the ultimate sacrifice during the Great War and all wars since so that we may all enjoy the freedoms and the blessings that we enjoy today. May we also on this Amnesty's Day pay tribute to the sons and daughters of the Cook Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific from New Way, Tonga, Tuvalu, Fiji, Samoa and Kiribati, who a century ago and in the years since, heeded the call to serve alongside New Zealand and Australia in the Great War and other wars since. Between 1915 and 1918, almost 500 men drawn from across all 15 islands of the Cook Islands voluntarily enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces. They went on to serve alongside Allied forces on the Western Front at the Somme and Passchendaele and in Egypt, Palestine and the Gaza. Known as the Rarotonga Company of the New Zealand Expeditionary Forces, they were for the most part dispatched to unload supplies from surf boats off the Mediterranean coast and carry ammunition for the Royal Artillery Eastern Force Unit. From historical accounts, they were, and I quote, formidable workers faster and stronger than the others for the task that they were allocated, close courts. While the quantum of 500 able-bodied Cook Islands men may seem minuscule compared to the thousands that perished from Australia and New Zealand, these 500 men constituted almost 6% of the total Cook Islands population at the time. You will agree with me a significant contribution by any standard and all the more remarkable given the geographic isolation, the transportation limitations and the islands of the Cook Islands being sprayed over two million square kilometres of ocean. We stood side by side on the battlefield of the Great War and worked together a century ago to ensure the peace and security our peoples enjoy today. It was a bond that was forged on the battlefields of war and which endures to this day and is an integral part of the foundation upon which our countries and people should draw inspiration from for the future. Though the battles of World War I were far from our island shores, our contributions voluntarily made were significant. Our sacrifice was keenly felt by our small island communities and it is our collective duty to ensure that those contributions live on and are woven into the fabric of the countries we were called to serve then, including Australia. In our Maori language, we must never forget them and we will never forget them. The pe'e or traditional chant that I open with is well known among my people. It pays tribute to the values, the traditions and the culture as passed down from generation to generation by our ancestors and implores our people to hold firm to those values, traditions and culture in charting the way forward and propelling ourselves into a future of enduring peace, security and prosperity. And it is a chant which I draw inspiration from for our future relationship with Australia. Can I at this point acknowledge my minister who joined my delegation from Rarokum, the Honorable Robert Tobaito, the Minister of Infrastructure and his lovely wife, Minister Welcome and also this lady sitting at the edge here. That's the head of our Foreign Affairs Ministry. She is actually an alumni of A&U. So in many ways it's a home coming for her and for me. Just as our separate and collective security was intertwined a century ago, so too will the separate and collective security of Australia and the Cook Islands be intertwined into the future. So long as we continue to be guided by the Oceanic and Pacific Islands Forum Corporation values of past decades, we will ensure economic stability and prosperity and strengthen security and resilience for the people of Australia, the Cook Islands and our Blue Pacific. Those values being open and genuine relationships, inclusive and enduring partnerships, balancing our conservation stewardship responsibilities with our development imperatives and regional collective action that is respectful of independent and sovereign states. I will now touch upon the historical beginnings of the Cook Islands and Australia relationship. The ties between us predate colonial contact and stretch far into the depths of our shared oceanic history. Indeed history records vibrant trade movement and exchange between and amongst members of our oceanic family, including the first peoples of this land. Since initial settlement of Australia and the Cook Islands millennia ago, there has been an intimate relationship between our peoples and the surrounding ocean, or as we call it in the Cook Islands, Timorna Nui Akiva. Since the beginning, Timorna has been both a highway and a source of subsidence for countless generations of Cook Islanders and the peoples of the Pacific. I now come to the present and our contemporary engagement. In similar respects, the concept of Timorna has expanded beyond traditional and literal definitions. The connectivity of peoples through the internet, a digital Moana, if you will, has seen enhanced and unprecedented levels of information sharing and exchange, knowledge creation and resources both tangible and intangible. In considering contemporary engagement between Australia and my country, educationally exchange provides but one example of ongoing cooperation and people-to-people links. I myself am an adopted Australian, except when it comes to sport. Having completed my Bachelor of Laws degree at the University of Tasmania, before coming here to the ANU, my alma mater in 1980, to complete my prescribed 60 month professional law course for admission to the bar. My experience in Australia and the education I received in your great country have proven invaluable over the years and an important part of my pathway to becoming Prime Minister of the Cook Islands in 2010. Witnessing the remarkable growth and development of the ANU since I was a student here reminds me of how the Cook Islands too has grown and developed over the years. In 1965, through an act of self-determination witnessed by the United Nations, the Cook Islands became self-governing in free association with New Zealand. Unlike most other former colonies, which shed their dependent status to become independent on one particular day, the Cook Islands political evolution is following a path much closer to that of Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Constitutional conventions play a key role in that regard as they did here in Australia. Under the Cook Islands Constitution Act of 1964, New Zealand had certain responsibilities for the external affairs and defense of the Cook Islands. Through the crystallization of constitutional conventions, however, it has long been accepted by both the Cook Islands and New Zealand that those responsibilities are in the nature of obligations assumed by New Zealand to assist the Cook Islands when requested to do so rather than rights of supervision and control. That understanding was enshrined in the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration signed by the Prime Ministers of the Cook Islands and New Zealand as was recognition that in the conduct of his foreign affairs the Cook Islands interacts with the international community as a sovereign and independent state. Over the years, the Cook Islands has established formal diplomatic relations with a number of states and a number of diplomatic envoys accredited to the currents are based right here in Canberra. I warmly acknowledge the number of the ambassadors in attendance this morning. Since 1965, my country has also become party to a wide range of regional and multilateral environmental, disarmament, economic and other treaties and become a full member of over 42 international organizations. Together with Australia since 1971, the Cook Islands has been a founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum and other significant regional bodies including the Pacific Community SPC and the Foreign Fisheries Agency, FFA. The Cook Islands growing participation in regional and international affairs reflects the growth of the country itself and its expanding needs and interests. From humble beginnings in 1965 the Cook Islands has grown its economy strengthened and various initiatives undertaken to promote the nation's sustainable development. In the environmental area for example my government declared our whole EEZ of nearly two million square kilometers has a marine protected area our Mariah Warner and formalized this through legislation in 2017 with the unanimous support of the House. The sacred objective of Mariah Warner is to protect and manage sustainably our oceanic resources. To further highlight the often unseen and unspoken linkages between our two nations I acknowledge the contributions of Australians from the Great Barrier Marine protected area offices in Townsville, John Day and Darren Cameron who availed experience sharing and technical advice during the Cook Islands early considerations of Mariah Warner in 2011. On the economic front spearheaded by the tourism sector and facilitative legislation and policies and I acknowledge the head of our tourism agency please stand my friend no you can't have it. Our economy has developed to such an extent that under criteria set by the OECD my country will graduate on the 1st of January 2020 from developing to high-level income status the first Pacific Islands country to do so. This is not worthy given the financial hardships endured by the Cook Islands in the mid-1990s when my government was declared bankrupt but while graduation is noteworthy accomplishment for my country it presents new challenges given that we will no longer be eligible for bilateral official development assistance as provided by OECD member countries including Australia. However the many vulnerabilities and challenges confronting the Cook Islands as a small island developing states do not miraculously evaporate upon ODA graduation to high-level income status. Those vulnerabilities and challenges become become even more acute post graduation with climate change and the increasingly frequent national disasters we're all grappling with including here in Australia. In the interest of time I will not dwell on the notable shortcomings in the OECD's assessment criteria for ODA eligibility being limited to DDP per capita these are well documented and the Cook Islands remain proactively engaged in global discussions on global development finance modalities. What we have particularly focused our efforts on in recent years is recalibrating our development approaches through greater use of blended financing and deliberately projecting outwards our sustainable development priorities sharing where relevant our best practice development advances we have also recalibrated and reinvigorated our international persona away from small and vulnerable to large ocean island states. We also employing our limited international management resources in a more targeted and expansory manner pursuing constructive bilateral regional and international engagements based on enduring partnerships pragmatic cooperation and ensuring our national interests remain paramount at all times. In the latter regard my government welcomes the commitment of the government of Australia to opening a diplomatic mission in the Cook Islands within the next couple of months. The establishment of this mission will greatly facilitate the further development of our bilateral relations as well as provide a mechanism to cooperate in addressing regional and global challenges facing both of our countries. As has been observed in many quarters and recorded extensively in current discourse recent years have witnessed an evolving geopolitical environment in which many actors are competing for influence to further their own interests. External influences are not new to the Pacific as we have been through numerous iterations of explorers colonizers world wars nuclear testing a cold war and globalization to name but a few. Resilience is part and parcel of our very existence. The Cook Islands will continue to carefully navigate regional ebbs and flows although our prevailing perspective is that the Pacific need not be a zero sum game. There is time and space for many partners to address the challenging development needs of the region and jointly harness with the region the many opportunities that are present. Australia's lengthy commitment and experience with the Pacific region underpins our relationship as a like-minded and long-term partner of choice. In this context I applaud Australia's policy initiative to step up in the region. The results of the step up are clear in our engagement with Australia through initiatives such as the new mission in Rotorua the Australian infrastructure financing facility the Pacific fusion center the new colombo blade and additional climate change financing. Our relationship with Australia is as strong as it has ever been and going from strength to strength. For the Cook Islands we must forge ahead in the interests of furthering the development of our small nation with integrity, candle and maturity, collaborating where our interests align and offering constructive feedback and honesty where they diverge but always grounded in fundamental respect for the sovereign right of nations to determine their own development paths while upholding the international rules based order. Given time constraints I can only mention a few important areas in which my government will focus its efforts in the months ahead for the Australia relationship. While the tourism sector in the Cook Islands has done well for a number of years my government recognizes the importance of growing and diversifying the economy. In that regard we see Australia as being an increasingly important trading partner and source of investment. In fact the very first commercial operation in the Cook Islands was established by a Sydney merchant on the island of Palmerston in 1811 and today a number of prominent tourism related businesses Australian owned or managed. Australia's development assistance to the Cook Islands is 3.7 million per annum currently delivered through a delegated cooperation aimed at improving economic prosperity and security. The Cook Islands imported from Australia in the 2016-17 period some 8.4 million dollars worth of merchandise goods and growth has continued since. The tradition of openness to international commerce has been part and parcel of Cook Islands economy for decades and my government sees such openness as key to the Cook Islands future growth and prosperity. For that reason the Cook Islands is looking to shortly ratify PASA Plus the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations Plus. We see PASA Plus as a framework for the cultivation and further deepening of economic and investment relations between the Cook Islands, Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific Island countries in the years ahead and we welcome Australia's commitment and investment. For many years security has been of great concern to the Cook Islands and other members of the Pacific Islands forum including Australia. A historic step forward in promoting regional security was taken in 2018 when I together with other forum leaders including Australia adopted the Bowie Declaration on Regional Security. In our declaration we identified climate change, human security, environmental and resource security, transnational crime and cyber security as areas of particular concern. In fact leaders reaffirmed that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the livelihood security and well-being of the peoples of the Pacific and their commitment to progress the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The views of forum leaders were echoed very recently in a warning from 11,000 independent scientists that quote planet earth is facing a climate emergency close quote and identified the need for quote bold and drastic transformations regarding economic and population policies close quotes. As a large ocean state with islands scattered wide across our nearly 2 million square kilometers he is it climate change has severe existential consequences for my country. In the case of my home island Maniki a coral atoll for example the highest elevation is only a few meters above sea level and a rise in sea level could have drastic consequences. Other forum island countries such as Tuvalu and Kiribati are in the same if not worse fragile position. For that reason at this year's meeting of Pacific forum leaders climate change was a subject of considerable discussion and resulted in the strongest statement made by leaders in the Kanaki-2 declaration for urgent climate action now. This is concrete project progress and leaders called for actions to be taken by each forum member both domestically and internationally. For our own national security we are taking mitigation and adaptation steps to give effect to the decision of forum leaders and we are looking to other forum members to do likewise. A few weeks ago we jointly celebrated with Australia the 30th anniversary of Tikukuba. Tikukuba is our Pacific class patrol boat provided by the Australian government and is a source of great national pride. It is an invaluable national security asset which our people have immense appreciation of and is a cornerstone of an enduring and comprehensive security and defence cooperation with Australia stretching back decades. National security is of high importance to the Kogailans and we are in the process of formulating our own very first national security policy and consultation and collaboration with relevant Australian institutions and agencies would be most welcome. In that regard threat assessments will be most vital. The Kogailans welcomes Australia's initiatives to promote information sharing to enable my government and other national governments to make informed security decisions. We look forward to further discussions in this regard so that we can devise regional arrangements that build on existing Pacific regional institutions and arrangements and that are appropriate for our region and security context. Finally and of particular significance for our future cooperation with Australia in my view is people to people connections. I commend and welcome the leadership of Prime Minister Morrison and his government in prioritising leader-to-leader engagements with the Pacific. This is putting substance to Australia's Pacific step up. The multitude of reciprocal high-level engagements between Australia and the Pacific of recent months is unprecedented and goes a long way to affirming Australia's commitment to genuine partnerships with and securing the future of the Pacific. It is imperative going forward that both governments work actively to strengthen people-to-people connections be they in diplomacy, security, business, education, health, sports, the creative industries, culture and the arts. Without concerted reciprocal investment by both governments in social capital we cannot build the necessary trust and understanding necessary to translate political and economic aspirations into tangible outcomes. People ultimately are the key to unlocking potential. A few weeks ago with transport support by the Australian Defence Force a small contingent of Cook Island's cultural performers participated alongside hundreds of other Pacific and international performers to deliver the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo right there in Sydney. Yesterday morning our National Rugby League team flew out of Sydney for Florida for a World Qualifier match against the United States. On Friday I will join hundreds of Cook Islanders who now call Australia home who will travel to Melbourne from across the expanse of Australia for Maewanui cultural and social celebration. Maewanui meaning great celebration. These are but three small examples of our people-to-people links across the breadth of both our societies. In closing I am most grateful to the Government of Australia for facilitating my visit and that of my delegation to Australia. My government welcomes the Pacific Step Up Engagement Initiative of the Australian Government and looks forward to deepening our cooperation in the future. Thank you for your attention. Everyone following that wonderful address Prime Minister Pune has agreed to take a few questions. Not too difficult please. Just two short questions about the name change and the second is climate change. The climate action taken by other countries and especially big economies like Australia are you happy with that and what do you think? The first question. What was that again? Climate change. No name change. Name change yes. Country name change. Yeah our people had to go but it got nowhere so it's not an issue at this stage. The second question can you repeat that again please sir? Climate action by a big problem. How foreign policy stance is governed by respect for other countries? They determine their own priorities. We can only make submissions and ask them you know to adopt policies that we consider are helpful to saving the environment but what we can do and what we're focused on doing is you know changing the situation in our own case and we thought that by doing that we can show others what can be done and what should be done. That's how we approach the issue. Any others? You know the Belt and Road Initiative is still being discussed and still being developed so in my view it's far from finished and there's more discussions to be had but we appreciate the effort of China you know to promote that. We're very good partners with China in terms of our international relations and we've found it very useful particularly in terms of the respect that China accords to all countries no matter how small like ourselves. So that's still a work in progress sir. I know that you had a second question so if you'd like to ask but is there a final question please? I should say the question is about the trilateral aid cooperation which relates to the amount of value water supply project in your country. So my question is why you come and decided to conduct or decided to try this new modality that is the trilateral aid? Yes we thought you know we would set the path for others to follow because we saw that as an opportunity to be explored and it has worked out really well. There have been some issues but you know the trilateral cooperation project is coming along very well and perhaps you know we like making history because it's the first time that China has agreed to be involved in the tripartite development project and guess what you know they started in the Cook Islands. Prime Minister Puna is being a huge privilege and an honor to host you and Mrs Puna. So on behalf of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs and the ANU I'd like to thank you very much for your very wise and eloquent words and I'd like to remind you that you're always welcome to come back and visit us and we have a little gift for you. Thank you. Please join me in thanking you.