 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and you're all very welcome this afternoon to the Institute for what I know is going to be a very interesting and stimulating talk by our distinguished visitor David Parker. And first of all though I'd like to welcome Ambassador Burgess and his team and members of the Ministers team who are here from New Zealand. You're all extremely welcome also to be here with us in Dublin today. And I'd like to just take the opportunity to thank the Embassy of New Zealand for their co-organisation of this event with the Institute this afternoon. David Parker is by profession and by training a lawyer. He is a member of Jacinta Arden's Government of New Zealand. He holds four portfolios, no less or no fewer I should say, than four portfolios. He's been Minister of Environment, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, Attorney General and Associate Minister of Finance. But during his term in Government he has overseen the negotiation, ratification of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, that trade agreement for New Zealand. He's presided over changes to the law governing foreign investment in this country. We had a brief chat about some very interesting initiatives that he has taken and his Government have taken in New Zealand. And he's leading amongst many other things his country's efforts to improve water quality in the rivers and lakes of that great country. So he is a lawful odd on this plate. He's a very interesting man. He's got much to say. We're delighted to have him here this afternoon. David Parker. Thank you for that. All politicians have got much to say. We live and die by it so we shouldn't apologise for it. Thanks everyone for coming along this afternoon. It's great to have the opportunity to be amongst you this afternoon and it's a genuine pleasure to be in Dublin. I lived in the UK for a while. I'm ashamed to say that I've never been to Dublin before. Isn't that a terrible admission? So I'll make that admission before I'm asked. As many of you are aware New Zealand's recently opened an embassy in Dublin, Brad's our ambassador and you've opened one in Wellington and it surprises some that we haven't done that earlier because we really do have a long-standing relationship. The contribution of Irish migrants made to the New Zealand story going back to the early settlement in the Gold Rush days is very much part of our national fabric. In 1840, which is at the start of really European colonisation of New Zealand, William Hobson, hailing from Waterford, signed New Zealand's founding document, The Treaty of Waitangi. Just 65 years later, about 1905, Dave Gallagher, a hero of the sports and battle fields who's now memorialised in Bronze and Donegal, kept in the original ore blacks. In the 1980s, New Zealand stood shoulder to shoulder with Ireland and helping to bring an end to the troubles by establishing the International Fund for Ireland. At the same time, many of Ireland's agricultural leaders of this generation were advancing their trade on New Zealand farms. From 2011 onwards, Irish tradespeople seeking prosperity in the aftermath of the crisis at home helped New Zealand rebuild a devastated Christchurch. A lot of Irish tradespeople came and helped out. And just 60 days ago, the T-shock stood with New Zealand Prime Minister Adirne in Paris, rejecting hate-inspired tax on anyone, particularly on New Zealanders practising their faith in Christchurch, and both committed to tackle online violent extremist content. Our similarities in size, population, geography, our rich natural capital and resulting strengths, these are all often cited as reasons for closeness between Ireland and New Zealand. One in six New Zealanders claim Irish heritage, including my own partner. She's of Irish extraction. But the connection runs much deeper than this. It's a sense of connected identity and shared outlook on life, common values, the rule of law, democracy, independent courts, public health and education systems funded by levels of taxation that are needed to sustain them. These, I think, really are the true underpinnings of similarities. I think it's why New Zealanders feel at home in Ireland and I think Irish people feel at home in New Zealand. And all of this is what's driven meaningful global partnership between New Zealand and Ireland. It's underpinned by a number of things. We both lead in the new Agenda Coalition to Combat Nuclear Proliferation. We are both responsible for the creation of the Small Advanced Economies Group that cultivates policy, exchange, learnings and aspirations to do better amongst small successful economies. And it's why Ireland stood with New Zealand and Paris signing up to the Christchurch call. All of these are global challenges. Some of them are crises. All of them are examples of New Zealand and Ireland working together to rise to those challenges. There are two issues that currently weigh heavily upon me and my roles as Minister for Trade and Export Growth and Environment, and I'll spend a bit of time on those. Firstly, trade. There can be no doubt that the outlook for global trade is the darkest that I can remember in all my years of public service. Forty new trade restrictions alone in the last six months introduced by G20 economies, they affect half a trillion dollars in exports. In the last two years we've seen the highest rate of increase in protectionist measures since the WTO was established. Even in the engine room of growth, the Asia Pacific economies, and I say that because so much of the world's growth is actually now coming out of China and some of the countries that surround it. Even in those countries there's been a 74% increase in the number of non-tariff barriers in the region between 2004 and 2015. And this is bad news for small dynamic internationally dependent economies like Ireland and New Zealand. We've got much on our plates managing the challenges of Brexit, navigating global power tensions, trying to sidestep collateral damage while encouraging dialogue and standing up for our own principles. We're mounting yet another effort this time at the 11th hour to safeguard and strengthen WTO and Geneva and you know there's many other things I could list that are not going quite right in trade. The stakes are significant for I think for the global economy and actually in the long term for peace but they're also significant for particularly significant for trading nations like ours. Part of the response strays it starts at home. There's been a fraying domestic consensus in many countries in respect of trade and New Zealand hasn't been immune for this and when TPP was signed which was the precursor to CPTPP we had tens of thousands of protesters blocking motorways in New Zealand. So we haven't been immune to this and when we came to power I was of a view personally and politically that a lot of this was born of complex factors which related to the insecurity of the middle class. That in itself had a lot of causes, the digital disruption to so many occupations, the so much wealth going to the 1% around the wealth including in our own countries. Panama papers showing that some of those people pay very little tax anywhere, unsettling things happening through extremes on social media which are not yet under control in any democracy. The GFC and the flow on effects of that on incredibly low interest rates enabling people who had assets to leverage them and buy more and excluding others. The sense that trade agreements were for multinationals rather than ordinary people and some of the provisions in agreements like international dispute settlement clauses which were seen as conferring greater rights on foreign multinationals than local corporates would have in respect of disputes with their own government. So we've chosen to deal with those issues and we've been remarkably effective actually in my opinion in this. We've really had a genuine dialogue with New Zealanders on these issues and we've tried to unpick them, unpick the issues and have responses to the individual issues rather than let trade be blamed for all of these things which is all too easy to do. And we're doing this under the umbrella of a trade for all policy that tries to ensure that trade agreements and trade deliver outcomes for as many people as possible flowing right through the economy. We're trying to improve the participation of women and businesses owned by women in trade not just in delegations but in exports of indigenous Maori people of rural communities of small to medium enterprises. So we've got an independent trade for all advisory board which is drawn from people including our critics that makes recommendations to government. Now we're not up ending core things. We continue to be fiercely, fierce advocates for free and open global markets. Our efforts to lead an inclusive trade agenda, agenda are intensifying including with like-minded nations. We've got an inclusive action, trade action group with Chile and Canada. We also work hard to curb environmentally harmful subsidies including through trade agreements. And these are things that we must do better on as well as communicating more effectively why international trade is so vital to New Zealand's economy. We try to convince people that globalization is an irresistible force and that technological change too is something that ought to be embraced not to try and build shields from it. You've got to deal with the consequences of the future of work rather than pretending that those issues aren't coming at us. So when we're talking with New Zealanders about trade at the moment in New Zealand it turns to the EU trade agreement. Many New Zealanders are surprised that we've now just got around to negotiating an agreement with the European Union. We can understand that reaction because it's out of step with the close partnership that we already have around disarmament, environmental protection, climate change leadership, standing up for human rights, dealing with cyber security issues, data privacy issues and more broadly cooperating in global bodies whether they be in New York, Geneva or elsewhere. And as my foreign policy colleague Winston Peters said on this very platform when you visited last year to open the embassy free societies need to support each other. There are not many of us in the world and it's a precious set of values that we all carry and we need to help each other carry them. So I'm pleased that we're finally making progress towards completing a truly progressive and high quality New Zealand European Union FTA which brings me to some other issues that we operate together on the world and that's championing free trade, open markets and delivering to that ambition. By doing so we open up new opportunities for business and we diversify their market risks and the risks of our own economy. The negotiations themselves were launched only in June last year. They've been in preparatory talks for much, much longer and the background work that was done is why the outgoing Commission President Yonka is hopeful that we can conclude an agreement this year. This is our number one but not only trade priority. Of course it's important that we get the right type of agreement one that truly makes a difference for businesses. That type of agreement will lift Irish companies in New Zealand and Kiwi companies looking to make Ireland their European home. It'll bring us closer together by growing trade and investment which will create opportunities for Irish exporters like those who accompanied Minister Humphries to New Zealand last month. Companies like Combylift who are breaking into the New Zealand market by supplying ports with critical infrastructure. They're first sojourn into the southern hemisphere. Other Irish-growing companies like Fexco and Westbourne IT have chosen New Zealand as their entry point into the Asia Pacific. There are some complexities in the EU negotiation and I don't need to tell you that. I haven't come across a trade negotiation that doesn't have them. We've all got sensitivities of different sorts in every agreement. Some New Zealand producers and businesses get a mixed reaction from our European friends for simply wanting to export the same products to you that you trade freely with us. This is despite the large trade surplus Ireland and Irish agriculture currently enjoys with New Zealand. But I'm confident that these sensitive issues can be managed while still achieving a very high quality agreement. In this era of increasingly illiberal policies and the retreat to small-minded protectionism, if the EU doesn't lead in carving out forward thinking and progressive new trade deals with important partners and like-minded friends like New Zealand, then I'm deeply concerned what the whole future holds for global trade more generally. However, I'm an optimist. I believe we can both get to a decent outcome in the European negotiation bilaterally. But I also think that there are there that. Where does my confidence come from? Well, we've actually got very experienced negotiators on the case on both sides here. We both have to do very well to protect our interests in this very competitive world. They're very good at what they do and they've managed transitions very successfully for our respective countries in the past. In the past few years, we've seen both of our countries conclude agreements that represent markets with the sizable bulk of GDP, with the focus increasingly shifting to countries where we're actively excluded from markets. I think the NZEUFTE will ensure that we put that discussion to bed. But I have further hope driven from the fact that we both share a desire to put sustainability at the centre of agreements. For example, we need trade agreements not to derogate from important environmental and labour laws. And we both know how to do that. We need to support the credibility and robustness of the Paris Agreement and to take and advocate for ambition climate action to help keep the 1.5 degree temperature limit within reach. We need to tackle environmentally harmful subsidies. Subsidies that put more CO2 into the environment will lead to overfishing. I find it astounding that despite the terrible problems that we've got with overfishing around the world, some countries are still subsidising their fleets. That's no problem. Still subsidising their fleets to fish illegally. We need to promote the trade and products and services and goods that assist the environment by giving them preferential trade status. And a truly groundbreaking agreement can make a difference on our shores, certainly. But it also spurs others. And in this way, our trade priorities contribute to tackling, to the second and frankly, more existential global challenge, which is climate change. We need all the tools we can muster. Achieving the Paris Agreement's goals requires economic transformation on a large scale. The flip side of that is also the economic opportunity that comes from those who lead. I'm visiting Dublin when climate legislation is before the New Zealand Parliament, following the release of Ireland's all-government climate action plan to tackle climate breakdown. We've both taken some bold decisions. In New Zealand, we've stopped the allocation of new areas, of offshore areas, to new oil and gas exploration, despite being very prospective, because we don't think responsibly they can be developed. We're working to achieve a 100% renewable electricity generation within 15 years. We've gone from 64% to 85% renewables in the last 10 years. We've shown how it can be done. We've got a zero carbon bill that mandates methane reductions of 10% by 2030 and between 24 and 40... I forget whether it's 44 or 47%. I think it's 47% by 2050 for the agricultural sector. So we're taking fossil methane, which is released from mines, be they coal mines or natural gas or oil exploration, to zero. But in respect of biogenic methane, we're promising substantial reductions of 10% by 2030 and between 24 and 47% by 2050. There's still uncertainty of the science around that. And we're taking all other gases to net zero, all CO2 and the HFCs and other miner gases, as well as nitrous oxide. We're creating a legally binding objective to limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees of Celsius. We've got a target to plant a billion trees in the next 10 years. And we've got a commitment to adjust transition for those industries and those who work in them who are affected by our journey to a low emissions future. These commitments mean that by 2050 New Zealand will be making no contribution to global warming. We'll be one of the first countries in the world that actually achieves that, in my opinion. In Ireland, you've got a fourfold increase in the carbon tax to 80 euros a tonne, and that's part of your efforts to redouble or to double renewable energy generation to 70% by 2030. Your intentions to phase out the sale of petrol and diesel cars include pushing for more zero emissions vehicles in the immediate future. You're working towards a more ambitious 2050 objective of achieving net zero emissions. These are very laudable ambitions. Many varied policy levers will need to be pulled to drive the transformation to a low emissions climate resilient economy. And it sits in New Zealand along other environmental objectives that we have. And luckily, most of them reinforce each other, whether it's biodiversity or improving water quality. New Zealand rivers are still very clean by international standards, but we have suffered a degradation of water quality caused by increasing nitrate levels from intensive forms of agriculture. And we was a big election issue at the last election. So we're taking measures to remedy those issues, to stop that decline and to rejuvenate those water bodies that have been degraded. I don't want to over emphasize how degraded they are because people think they sound really dirty. They're actually still cleaner than most of the rivers in the world, but the trend has been wrong and we want to reverse the trend. So many of these issues that we face globally, whether it's plastics in the sea or greenhouse gas emissions now transcend borders and no one country can fix them alone. International action and commitment are needed to achieve the results that we want. At present, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs of trade is seeking high ambition provisions on climate change in every FTA that we've got under negotiation. We're leading international efforts for fossil fuel subsidy reform. It's crazy some of the subsidies that effectively discourage renewables relatively, including at the World Trade Organization ahead of the June 2020 ministerial conference. We're working to build a coalition of countries taking action to mitigate agricultural emissions through the Global Research Alliance on Greenhouse Gases and our first partner in that in the world was Ireland. And we jointly cheer that at the moment. We're funding work by the OECD on carbon leakage risks and jurisdictions that include a price on carbon in their economies, including for agriculture. And we're engaging in the UNFCCC work streams that touch on trade policy. Through our engagement in APEC, we're putting sustainability issues on the agenda in the Asia-Pacific preeminent trade and economic forum. As things stand, there are a host of additional trade related policy actions which could contribute meaningfully to combating climate change. These include further liberalization of trade and climate friendly technologies, including both goods and services, concrete action on reforming subsidies for fossil fuels, probably should say firm action rather than concrete action, given the embedded emissions. Fisheries and also reforming subsidies for fisheries and other harmful environmental subsidies. And we also promote the development of international carbon markets with environmental integrity. So we look for the most effective way to advance all of these issues. Both New Zealand and Ireland as agricultural pressures also face challenges that are unique to our communities, like tackling on-farm emissions, also keeping our farms disease-free whilst we also protect the environment. We're working together on these issues through initials like the Global Research Announce Alliance that I mentioned, particularly through the Livestock Research Group. At last year's Climate Conference, New Zealand and Ireland worked together to convene a three-day event which was well attended by other countries, focused on trying to achieve this triple win of reducing agricultural emissions while we increase productivity and strengthening resilience to climate impacts. It was relevant and so, and it was well received, so our officials are now working together on a possible follow-up. New Zealand's co-leading with China, the Nature-Based Solutions Pillar of the United Nations Secretary-General's Climate Change Summit to be held in September in New York. Amongst its deliverables, the pillar will seek political commitment to reducing food system emissions, underscoring the need for community and private sector engagement, emphasizing the need for practical policy and practical implementation targets themselves don't reduce emissions. Under the auspices of that pillar, New Zealand has proposed a new agricultural initiative focused on investment and strengthening, developing countries' ability to monitor agricultural greenhouse gases, to increase ambitions on agriculture within nationally determined contributions, and to mobilise investment in agricultural mitigation research. We will call upon countries such as Ireland to come on board. It's a way to agenda, and understandably given the shortness of time, I've only got time to touch on a lot of these issues, but suffice it to say, New Zealand and Ireland work very closely together. We've got some big challenges before us, but I'm confident that we can help improve the world as we work on them together, and I'm happy to answer questions on anything.