Speech
16th Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum Welcome Reception
May I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand - in English, Maori, Cook Island Maori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language.
Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is evening (Sign)
May I specifically greet you: Hon Margaret Wilson, Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives and President of the 16th Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum; Delegates from the Member and Observer Nations; Your Excellencies Members of the Diplomatic Corps; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is with pleasure that my wife Susan and I welcome you to New Zealand and to Government House in Auckland this evening. This is the first time that New Zealand has hosted the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum and so we are also honoured by your attendance.
I know you have a busy work programme ahead of you, and will keep my remarks brief.
Starting with representatives from nine countries in 1991, the APPF has grown to encompass 27 countries, from Russia, Canada and the United States to Japan, Malaysia and Singapore to Australia, New Zealand, many Pacific territories and Chile. Founded by the former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, it seeks to provide opportunities for national parliamentarians of the Asia Pacific region to meet, identify and discuss matters of common concern and interest.
I would like to say, though, that the group you belong to represents a region that is absolutely central to New Zealand and if one creates a globe of the world with New Zealand at its centre (the kind of thing we all did as children) the APPF world lies literally around it.
I am sure that during your time in Auckland you will hear facts and figures of the linkages between New Zealand and the Asia Pacific: the trade agreements; the shared participation in regional arrangements such as APEC, ASEAN and the East Asia Summit; the involvement in relationship-building processes such as the Alliance of Civilisations.
These things are the machinery that binds our countries - the formal connections. But I suspect you will share my view that the formal links are worth little if we do not know and understand each other. In the words of American President, the late Lyndon Baines Johnson:- "If we are to live together in peace, we must come to know each other better."
This is where organisations such as the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum are so important. You will be considering many weighty resolutions and producing a Joint Communiqu that canvasses the most important issues facing the region and our world.
In the end, though, the major benefit of your Forum is not only that it brings the legislators of this large and diverse region closer together, but also that it allows them to talk to each other and place faces to names.
The ancestral root of the word "Parliament" in English is the word "Parler" in French—to speak. It is only by talking with each other that you will learn how your colleagues in other countries think and operate. By the time you return home on Thursday and Friday you will have a better understanding of their concerns and what inspires them. I am sure you will have formed some new friendships with members of delegations from other countries.
These connections are invaluable. They will surely mean that your knowledge of the region is increased and that you have the means to become a more effective parliamentarian and community leader. More important still, they will mean that, at some future date when you may be embroiled in some delicate regional issue, you will be able to telephone or email someone in another country and connect with someone you know and who knows you.
You will be able to talk frankly about your problems and perhaps reach a solution more readily because you have come to respect and trust each other because, in the end, the strength of the bonds between nations stand and fall on the bonds between people.
Ladies and gentlemen, a challenge which I offer you is for you to consider that thought about connections as you meet over the next few days. I wish you the very best of fortune in your deliberations and I thank you for coming this evening.
On that note of welcome and anticipation, I will close in Maori, offering greetings and wishing you good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tena koutou katoa.