 Kiora koutou katoa na mihi nui kia koutou. I welcome you in the language of Te Reo Māori and bring you the warmest greetings of Aotearoa, New Zealand. I consider it a true honour and a privilege to be joining you here this morning, so I thank you for sharing and spending a little bit of time with me. Now I began preparing my comments for today's event while I was sitting in my constituency office in Auckland, New Zealand. It's a relatively humble space, made all the more so by the fact that I've never quite completely unpacked my office and I still sit amongst quite a few boxes. But on my desk sits a photo of my nana. She died when I was 12 years old, but was a really staunch member of the New Zealand Labour Party, the party that I am now very, very proud to lead. Now next to my nana sits a framed image of Kate Shepherd. She was the suffragist who, we in New Zealand credit for the fact that women were granted the right to vote in New Zealand 125 years ago. We were the very first in the world. And a framed box sits nearby Kate. A letter I received from Hillary Clinton after the 2017 election in New Zealand and it's signed off with the words, never, never, never give up. And finally on my far wall sits a cartoon. It's of Nelson Mandela and underneath it contains his words, quote, overcoming poverty. It's not a task of charity. It is an act of justice. Now you could say that the artefacts that I sit amongst in that office really sum up my life in politics. It started with my family. It's been full of role models. But ultimately it is motivated by the simple idea that politics is a place that you can address injustice. I grew up in two small towns in New Zealand. Now population as an entire nation is only roughly 4.5 million people. You probably think our entire country is a small town relative to yours. But I'm talking about towns of something like 3,000 people. First town I grew up in was a little place called Murupara. And that place taught me about inequality. I was raised the daughter of a policeman and was the product of the 1980s when New Zealand went through a really rapid period of privatisation and economic liberalisation. Now in New Zealand that period was called Rogernomix. It was named after our finance minister of the time. In America the same or similar phenomenon was known as Reaganomics. And the impact on working families was similar. Jobs in New Zealand were lost. Manufacturers moved offshore. Relations were removed and the gap between rich and poor grew. Then came the 1990s. A Conservative Government in New Zealand introduced reforms that brought user pay to the fore and also welfare cuts to the poorest. Now I was really young when all of this was happening around me but I still remember it. And if it is possible for you to build your social conscience when you are a schoolgirl then that's what happened to me. Now I never looked at the world through a lens of politics though but rather through a lens of fairness. And that sentiment captures one of the most pervasive values that we have in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We are proud but also self-deprecating. We are dreamers but we are also complete pragmatists and if there is one thing we hate it is injustice. We try our best to do right by one another. Now perhaps it comes from being a million miles away from anywhere. Isolated and completely reliant on one another. We think that a three-hour flight is a short commute and we hardly bat in eyelid when it takes 12. If it takes a full 24 hours in the sky just to reach Europe don't get me started on 17 hours to get to New York with a three-month-old baby. Yet despite our geographic isolation we are acutely aware of the impact that we have on the world and that the rest of the world has on us. Now these are values that I believe we need to display in our politics because politics is increasingly a dirty word but values are not. Values have always been my starting point. I signed up to a political party when I was just 17 years old not because I was looking for a career but perhaps naively I wanted to change the world. I was promptly handed upon joining a political party 300 leaflets and sent out to change the world one letter box at a time. But what does it look like to bring that values-based approach into politics? How do we make the rhetoric meaningful and make sure that we're delivering genuine change for our population? Now some would argue if you're looking for a long list of values-based reforms you need to look no further than the sustainable development goals and they would be right. An earnest politician would be hard-pressed to argue with goals like halving poverty and preserving the sustainability of our oceans or inclusive education. And yet the SDGs haven't been treated as a given. And on a number of measures I know we in New Zealand have a long way to go too. Now our response to this challenge hasn't been to create a tick box list. Instead we have decided to try something no other country has done before and embed indicators like the SDGs into everything that we do. So we've started by redefining what success looks like. Now traditionally success or failure in politics has been measured purely in economic terms, growth, GDP, your trade deficit and the level of debt that you carry. But on those terms you would call New Zealand relatively successful. But in the last few years the deficiency of such measures has become stark. We for instance in New Zealand have had rates of growth and international commentators have remarked upon and commended. But at the same time we've also had some of the worst homelessness in the OECD and growing inequality. Now I don't consider that success. Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is a failure. So we are establishing brand new measures of national achievement that go beyond growth. We have for instance created a tool called the Living Standards Framework. It puts the notion of sustainable intergenerational wellbeing at the centre of the different decision making processes we have, policy advice, government expenditure and long-term management of assets. We will start tracking our progress against a range of new and different tools. Our statistics department is at the moment working on an ambitious project called Indicators Aotearoa New Zealand that aims to create a comprehensive set of indicators across dimensions that include current and future wellbeing of New Zealand, both economic, cultural, social and environmental. Now these tools will ultimately help us to deliver and monitor the delivery of the SDGs. Our very first test of the new approach we are using will be next year. That's when we deliver our first budget using these new measures. We've called it the well-being budget and it will unashamedly look to invest in the next generation. But look, all of this is the how, the way we are choosing to work. It doesn't tell you much about what it is that we will be rolling out, our agenda for change. For that, I want to reference again the starting point for New Zealand. Now like many, New Zealand has not been immune to a period of rapid and transformational change over these past few decades. Globalisation has changed the way we operate, but has also had a material difference on the lives of our citizens. Not everyone has been well served by these changes. While at a global level, economic growth has been unprecedented, the distribution of benefits has been uneven at the level of individuals and communities. In fact, for many, the transition our economies have made in the wake of globalisation has been jarring. Now as politicians, we all have choices in how we respond. We can whip up resentment or we can build a response. Our choice in New Zealand is action. That's why one of our key priorities is to grow and share more fairly New Zealand's prosperity. Investing more in research and development so that we improve the productivity of our country. We're focusing on shifting away from volume instead to value in our exports and we are committing to lifting wages. We know we can't fund our social programme unless we generate income from exports. So we're supporting exporters but also workers in the environment by pursuing a new progressive set of free trade agreements and developing a trade for all agenda. We're modernising our reserve bank so that it works to keep both inflation in check but also unemployment low and we're committed to a better balanced and fairer tax system. We also need to do better at lifting incomes of New Zealanders and sharing the gains of economic growth. So we are progressing pay equity settlements with workforces of predominantly woman workers. We're taking the pressure of families by extending parental leave to 26 weeks. We're closing the gender pay gap and we have already raised the minimum wage and we'll keep raising it right through to 2020. When fully rolled out our families package, a tax credit policy aimed at lower middle income owners in New Zealand will lift thousands of children out of poverty. But economic gains and growth, they matter for nothing if we sacrifice our environment along the way or if we fail to prepare for the future. That's why we are transitioning New Zealand to a clean green carbon neutral economy. That means making the transition to a net zero carbon economy and we'll do that by 2050. Our $100 million green innovation fund will help business to tap opportunities in smart low carbon industries. We've also launched a programme that will see 1 billion trees planted in New Zealand over the next 10 years to support our climate change agenda and generate jobs. That is more trees than sheep, I can assure you. We'll also put an end to new offshore oil and gas exploration permits and have set a goal of having 100% renewable energy generation by 2035. We also need to bring back some authenticity to our clean green image by better managing the waste we produce investing to protect our unique biodiversity ensuring our rivers are swamable for future generations and we have plans in all of those areas. But of course we are nothing without our people. Now we've set ourselves some big goals like ensuring that everyone who is able is either earning, learning, caring or volunteering. Including making the first year of tertiary study in New Zealand completely free of fees. We're supporting healthier, safer and more connected communities. We're ensuring everyone has a warm, dry home and last but not least making New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child. Now this agenda is quite personal to me. I'm the Minister as well as Prime Minister for Child Poverty Reduction in New Zealand. Now I took that portfolio because of the importance we place on lifting tens of thousands of children out of poverty and ensuring that every child, no matter what their background, has their basic needs met and the opportunity to thrive. We are determined to make a difference. This year we will pass into law the Child Poverty Reduction Bill that will make it a legislative requirement to report on how many children we have lifted out of poverty. We also know that it's not just about family incomes but whether a child has all their needs met, including good health, a roof over their head, a great education and perhaps the thing we take for granted the most, time with their parents and their caregivers. If I were to sum up our agenda though, it would be very simple. I want to demonstrate that politics doesn't have to be about three or four-year cycles. It doesn't have to be self-interested or have a singular focus. It can be about long-term challenges and we can respond to them. It can be designed to think about the impact on others and show that we are making a difference and it can even be kind. As an international community, I am constantly heartened by our ability to take a multilateral approach and sign up to a set of aspirations that are values-based but perhaps it's also time to challenge ourselves to move beyond aspiration to action. I can assure you that is what we will be doing from our corner of the world and I can also assure you that we will never, never, never give up. Thank you very much. I'm getting lots of messages. That is really fantastic. From your corner of the world, could you describe your climate change agenda a little bit? You said you're going to all renewables. How are you doing it? Then I want to ask you about your next door neighbour which isn't quite doing it and how one understands that. I think if I were describing our agenda, it's driven out of necessity. We are members of the Pacific and climate change is not a hypothetical in our region. I recently returned from visits around Tonga, Samoa, Nui, the Cook Islands and they had recently had a series of severe cyclones. Those kinds of weather events aren't new in our region but the severity and the frequency is and when you have someone talk about the fact that the village they grew up in is now at risk of being submerged, then that just really brings home the reality of the situation in our region. Those islands, our neighbours, they can't opt out of the impact of climate change so why should we be able to opt out of taking action? We do have an obligation and so that really is the foundation for what we're doing. We are already sitting at over 80% renewable energy in New Zealand. We have a combination of sun and rain and that combination of course means that when it comes to the energy side of our emissions profile, we're in pretty good shape. What's difficult for us is the agricultural side. Our emissions profile is roughly 50% agricultural emissions. Now that makes us pretty unique but one of the points that we've been making as we've been investing in global research alliance, is to try and literally alter the way we farm to reduce our emissions profile, we all have to address that side of the challenge because it comes at the risk to our food security and our emissions profile is actually the likes of what other developed nations will face further down the track once they pick off the low-hanging fruit of energy generation and transportation. So we're really at the front line of something that probably other countries like the likes of Ireland and the Netherlands and others will soon face. So we need them to think ahead and help invest in advanced technology particularly on food production. Fantastic. With Australia, big neighbour of yours, they are still in the midst of the politics of coal, the midst of the politics of fossil fuels and so on. Any advice for them? I only give advice on sporting fixtures like rugby and... You beat them, right? Politics, we leave to each other. But look, it's not easy. I once described climate change as the nuclear free moment for New Zealand. That was a reference to the fact that there was a period in New Zealand's history where we were completely unified behind making our part of the Pacific free of nuclear testing. It really did unify us. One difference though, actually, the more I reflect on it is that there was that unity. Actually, on climate change, we can all agree about the problem that it presents, but there are huge interests in maintaining the status quo and they are hard to shift. We recently announced that we would not be issuing any further oil and gas exploration permits in New Zealand. But those are tough calls. Those are industries. Those are jobs. And we have a duty of care to those people who have relied on those industries and those jobs. So I understand what Australia is confronting, what others are confronting, but we have a duty of care to the next generation as well. Could I ask you about identity politics and ethnicity because, of course, you have a large indigenous population, a Maori population. You're at one corner of the so-called Polynesian Triangle, but a major part of Polynesia. You have the politics of migration like everyone else. Could you reflect a bit about New Zealand's special learning about all of that and I also want us to discuss briefly your interesting political coalition because I think it's very eye-opening for us. I mean, I could speak for a long time around every element of that question. We are one of the most ethnically diverse countries I'm told in the world. But underpinning all of that, though, is, of course, the fact that the Crown's relationship with Māori is underpinned by the Treaty of Waitangi, a founding document between Māori and the Crown. So indigenous New Zealanders, that relationship is, you know, dictates the way that we work as a government. It's incredibly important to us and that probably makes us quite unique relative to some that the existence of that founding document signed in 1840 makes us quite different to others. But, you know, what I would say around issues around migration, I spoke briefly about globalization, the impact that it's had on our economies and communities, what I sense around the world is this growing sense of insecurity, whether it's financial insecurity, the sense that you're not necessarily guaranteed a roof over your head or a stable job or a stable income anymore. And as progressives, we have to respond to that. And the way that progressives respond needs to incorporate our values. It needs to be inclusive. It needs to acknowledge decent wages and decent conditions. It needs to apply in the way that we treat issues of migration. We've been tackling a New Zealand effect. There has been exploitation of our migrant communities. So the reforms that we're going through are very much focused on fixing that side of the ledger because that's a part of who we are. Maybe you could explain a little bit. I find it quite fascinating that Prime Minister heads a social-democratic centre-left party. It's aligned with what would be resident to American ears this year which is New Zealand first party. So a kind of America first idea as I understand it, anti-migrant or close the migration or limit migration. In the United States our battle is incredibly tough right now, right and left, but the anti-migrant is solidly right. It's aligned with also the corporate interests and that's the Republican Party and the Democratic Party which is our it passes for left. It's kind of centre. But we call it a centre-left party anyway not by your standards is pro-migrant and pro-migration. The idea that these could be in a coalition is almost unimaginable in our politics but you have a coalition of a progressive social-democratic vision and a limit on migration and I like you to explain that to me and to all of us because I think it's interesting actually and the third party in our agreement is the New Zealand Green Party so obviously very different also. But actually if you I'll paint a little picture for you and MMP politics were similar to the German system except we managed to negotiate our coalitions in a very short time frame because the New Zealand population get a little impatient with us if we take too long so we took roughly from memory about two weeks in our government but the leader of the New Zealand First Party was the one to announce the decision that he had made between whether or not he would form a coalition predominantly with the New Zealand Labour Party or the National Party, the more conservative party in New Zealand and his speech that night when he announced his decision he talked about all of the things that actually really resonated with the parties he formed ultimately a government with and they were that our economic system had failed people and look there's no doubt that it has when you have economic growth and terrible homelessness something has gone horribly wrong and that was the basis of the speech that he gave that night so the things that unite us are founding principles for what we're doing now and our agenda and I'd push back a little bit on their behalf as well around some of the sentiment and assumptions that are made about them when it comes to relation policy. In fact just last week we we essentially almost doubled the refugee quota in New Zealand and we did that as a government together. So what I think what we've managed to do is acknowledge that actually globally that issue that I've spoken about that financial insecurity that sense of insecurity that's something that we see that exists amongst voters and it is up to us and how we choose to characterize those threats and how we respond to them and we choose to say actually we have a role to play as governments to fix some of those problems rather than blaming any other group and society we're going to carry the burden for fixing that and that's what we're doing. Great thank you Maybe the biggest divide in the world right now geopolitically is also for complicated reasons the U.S. trade war on China and seemingly the U.S. trying to stoke a new divide with China. President Trump in the Security Council accused China of meddling in the elections. He at the podium of the General Assembly talked glowingly about all the tariffs that he has imposed on China. For New Zealand this must not be a very comfortable situation to have your ally on one side, your leading trade partner and regional neighbor on the other and seemingly this potential high level conflict rising and what should be done about this? We should stick to the rules and regardless of who's engaged putting that aside for us for any small island nation we rely on predictability, we rely on ora and we rely on the rules that's probably why from the very outset of the formation of the United Nations we were there at the table we saw the benefit of us recognising that responsibility that we had to each other to our people but to each other as well and that's why we're advocates at the WTO we are sticklers for the rules trade wars serve no one but they do particularly punish smaller nations with perceived lack of power they perceive because I do think we need to redefine power this notion any sense that we retrench and instead base our power around the size of our economies or the size of our population is really a rejection of multilateralism and I push back on that because there's something levelling about those institutions and rightfully that has been built up over time and I will defend to the hilt the role that multilateralism can play in solving our global problems and the need for us each to stay at the table How do you think you can make a strong coalition for multilateralism when it is under such threat now from unilateralism in this country or in other big countries but there are still examples if I were to give a seed of hope there are still examples of where it's still working it's still happening within the UN the application of sanctions around North Korea there are examples where it's still working and there are examples where we continue for instance as a global community in large part to try and uphold things like the Iran Agreement so there are elements where you see that reinforcement of multilateralism still in play we just ultimately from our perspective we will continue just to apply the values that we always have from successive governments and I'm quite proud of the fact that regardless of political stripes New Zealand has pretty much maintained a consistent world view I was reviewing New Zealand's rankings in our SDG index and we publish every year also a world happiness report you'll be happy to know it's not a great surprise New Zealand ranks near the top of the world in both of those as a country that is really on course to achieve all of the SDGs if it makes the effort which is extremely exciting and also one of the happiest places in the world so that is also the people surveyed were not in politics that's but you're serving them for their wellbeing which is key but there was one area where New Zealand needs to do more so I wanted to press you on that on stage which is surprising to me your development aid is rather low as a share of GDP it is something like 0.2% of 1% for the United States I understand that we're shirkers we are not a responsible country we're $100 billion a year less than we should be but I was frankly surprised with New Zealand I wanted to make a recommendation to your Prime Minister on this stage as long as I get a right of risk could New Zealand reach the 0.7 target and you're a small country so this is not going to change the world of development aid but I would say direct it all towards the island economies and make the 0.7 and especially I would do it if I were and I will make the recommendation I guess do it through the learning institutions on the islands so that you're empowering knowledge in local universities and training people so that they can take these challenges on so I wonder whether wouldn't that be a nice progressive way for New Zealand to honour Polynesia and the incredible unique region of the world that you helped to lead as it happens in the last budget we recognised that we needed to boost our international aid in development that we needed to do our bit so we increased on top of what we already had we increased our ODA budget by $700 million and I do I do want to acknowledge that our foreign affairs minister the advocate for that significant increase is also the leader of the New Zealand First Party so that probably gives you a little bit of an insight into that also I just came from the Pacific Island Forum two weeks ago and look this is just one of many things but we just put $9 million into education in the Pacific Islands and that was directed at tertiary institutions so we absolutely acknowledge the role we need to play in the Pacific a large a significant sum of that additional ODA will go into the Pacific this week we announced $300 million over four years specifically for climate adaptation and mitigation focusing predominantly on the Pacific so that is where our lens is so we could see you getting to 0.7 it's going to take us a bit it's going to take us a bit we're doing our best thank you you are an inspiration to young people around the world but especially I think to young women politicians and I wonder if you could say something to the young women in the room about getting into politics and your perspective if I might as a woman leader for New Zealand but also really for the world because you're known you're admired all over the world can I share a personal reflection I do think that globally and this isn't speaking to any particular political environment because I think this is absolutely universal we need to make politics a more attractive place to be we just do and I'm speaking from New Zealand's perspective even there we know we could do more to just make it a more attractive choice but beyond that you know I have noticed at least in my country that when I talk to young women in particular about their aspirations even from a young age I sense this hesitance that this is almost opting out and I often distill I make this assumption that it might come down to confidence and I make that assumption because I was exactly the same even though I was totally political at the age of 17 I never ever assumed that I would become a member of Parliament let alone a Prime Minister even when I was in Parliament you track back through any interview I did I always rejected the notion of leadership now there were lots of reasons for that but in part there's a tendency in young women to say that we don't have everything that it takes to have that tiny little seat of doubt overamplify in our minds and overtake everything else and I can tell you that if we continue to allow that to dictate the decisions that we make then we'll be the ones left behind and that's not right so yes we have a huge amount of work to do to make sure we carve a path for women to make sure our workplaces are more flexible that there are greater options and opportunities to address unconscious bias we have to do all of that but we also have to boost our women's confidence and support them into those roles too and help them overcome those tiny seeds of doubt because if we don't then we will be all the poorer I'm sure you're doing it please join me in thanking the Prime Minister thank you really appreciate it