New Zealand Scholars of APEC
May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is evening time (Sign).
May I specifically greet you, first, Your Excellency Hon Justice (Retired) Rubin, High Commissoner for Singapore to New Zealand. The coincidence that Singapore will host this year’s APEC Leaders Summit and Conference makes it hugely appropriate that you are able to be here this evening. Secondly you, Lex Henry, Barrister and Solicitor and Chair of the Virtual Trade Mission—New Zealand; members of the organising team for the seminar; sponsors; teachers and students; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.
My wife Susan and I are very pleased to receive you all at Government House in Auckland this evening for this New Zealand Scholars of APEC event.
One of the great pleasures of the Governor-General role is the opportunity it gives both Susan and I to meet many New Zealanders. That is especially satisfying when the connection is with young people who have demonstrated a commitment beyond the ordinary to the society in which they live.
In a few moments from now, I will be presenting awards to those selected to represent New Zealand at the International Voices of the Future Youth Summit at the APEC CEO Summit, in Singapore later this year. That will of course be a particular honour for those individuals. Every student here tonight however is deserving of congratulations. Your identification and presence reveals that you have gained the confidence of your educators – and that you have demonstrated commitment, along with intelligence and curiosity.
What is more, is that it shows you shown good judgment to take advantage of opportunities offered to you. The event in which you have participated since Wednesday midday has given you a chance to observe, meet and talk with a number of contributors from an enormously important and influential sector in our country.
I have little doubt that, for some of you, this experience will be one you will look back to as a personal milestone for some years ahead. All of you, I am sure, will be grateful to those who have made the experience possible.
Can I urge you all to continue to make the most of the opportunities that may be provided by your education. It follows that I urge you to make education your priority and to invest what time, energy and resources are available to you. As the famous Dean of the Harvard Law School and that University’s President for twenty years from 1971 to 1991 once said: ‘If you think education is expensive, try ignorance’ .
It is up to each of you to create for yourselves the platform upon which you will be able to construct both useful and satisfying careers, and vital and interesting lives.
I would like to take a moment too to extend congratulations to the educators themselves. There are teachers in my own immediate family - my wife Susan is a former intermediate school teacher, and both daughter and daughter in law to be are contemporary secondary school teachers in Wellington. I am thus made well aware of the skill and dedication that is required to help students gain the knowledge they need to succeed in the complex world of the 21st century.
United States President of the 1960s John F Kennedy said:- ‘Progress as a nation can be no swifter than… progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.’ I share that view. Education is a rising agent within our communities and within New Zealand as a whole. It helps us become what we have the potential to be. Education is a profound influence on the quality of our connection with each other, and with the rest of the world.
Those external connections are crucial to our country The words of a famous New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Brian Talboys, come to mind. Talboys said in an important address:- ‘New Zealand is utterly dependent on the outside world’. The current July issue of the New Zealand International Review carries an article by doyen diplomat Terence O’Brien in which he speaks of New Zealand’s geographical remoteness but that what he calls our country’s:- “strategic invisibility constitutes a solid foundation for a nimble independent foreign policy”.
Genuine prosperity for New Zealand will not be achieved by an insular focus on our own affairs, but by finding the terms on which we can engage most effectively with our international partners.
APEC, of course, is a very valuable grouping of interested nations—or, more precisely, economies—supporting trade and economic relations between its 21 members.
As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade describes it, APEC provides ‘a framework for dialogue and cooperation in a diverse, widely spread region with a relatively short history of working together’.
New Zealand’s membership of APEC represents one of the most important ways in which we engage with other countries, and highlights the trading activities on which our country’s wellbeing is so dependent.
And our ability to trade requires that our businesses are responsive to the changing requirements of the international market.
My sense of New Zealanders—and with the benefit in this role of having met and talked with quite a number—is that we are innovative and creative. In business, we can point to leaders in a number of fields, and our business people have come to be well regarded in many parts of the world.
I think that the New Zealand (but currently Australia based) columnist-author Helen Brown put this kind of thing well when she said:- "From an outsider's perspective, New Zealand seems to be poised on a creative vortex, where ordinary people are quietly inspired to produce things of unique styles and beauty. I'm not sure why it happens. Maybe it's to do with the clarity of vision that springs from isolation; a small population and plenty of space enabling people to have a crack at anything; the proximity of the sea and exquisite landscapes; the influence of Polynesian culture. And I guess a teaspoon of self-criticism comes in handy."
As scholars of APEC, and re-engineered by your programme this week, you will undoubtedly be much better informed now about the principles and practices of business, and the challenges and opportunities of trade. It is for you now to take what you know, and to adapt it both for your own advantage, and for the advantage of the society you (and we all) live in.
On that note, I will close in New Zealand’s first language, Māori, by offering greetings and wishing you good health and fortitude in your endeavours.
No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā koutou katoa.