Hungary Official State Visit

Your Excellencies, President Mdl and Madame Mdl

Distinguished guests

Ladies and gentlemen

Kia ora tatou - greetings to you all.

We are delighted to be here with you this evening. This is my first visit to Hungary and to your beautiful city. I am very pleased we will have the opportunity not only to meet many Hungarians but as well to see something of Budapest and areas outside the capital. 

Peter and I have been touched by the warmth of your welcome. But such a welcome was not unexpected. Hungarians are well known in New Zealand as a warm and hospitable people.

My visit to Hungary is intended to underscore the importance we attach to building our partnership with you.

We share with you a commitment to democratic values, to global peace and security, the advancement of human rights and to economic prosperity.

New Zealanders have the highest admiration for the stoicism and determination with which, like others in the former East Bloc countries, Hungarian citizens faced the challenges of the last 70 years.

Through the 1956 Revolution and struggle for liberty, the Hungarian people demonstrated to the world their resistance to injustice.  The majority of Hungarian migrants to New Zealand followed the suppression of this movement.  In Wellington, our capital, a wooden gate gifted by your government to the people of New Zealand commemorates those Hungarians.  Earlier this year I had the pleasure of opening a Hungarian garden in Wellington funded by the generosity of Hungarians throughout New Zealand.  Both the garden and the gate serve as powerful symbols of friendship cooperation between our two nations. 

The Hungarian community in New Zealand and the New Zealand community in Hungary both help to strengthen and build our bilateral links. It is pleasing to see a growing number of New Zealanders working and living in Hungary and contributing to your national life in so many different fields.

I am pleased too that our new Honorary Consul in Hungary (or 'our Honorary-Consul-designate' if formal approvals are not in place by the time of the visit), Mr Sardi Reszo, and Mrs Sardi, are able to be with us tonight. I know Mr Sardi is looking forward to his new role and to interacting with the Hungarian and New Zealand communities.

New Zealanders and Hungarians share much in common. We should not let the distance that separates us geographically hinder our joint efforts to develop an even closer partnership.

There is much that we are already doing together.

People to people contacts underlie a successful bilateral relationship. Numbers of tourists to New Zealand from Hungary have doubled over the last five years, admittedly from a small base. Budapest and Hungary are growing in popularity among New Zealanders visiting Europe. The current visa free arrangement for stays of less than three months is designed to facilitate two-way contacts.

A number of Hungarians are studying English in New Zealand.  There are staff contacts and student exchanges between our universities, particularly in agricultural studies. Like many Europeans, young Hungarian students increasingly view New Zealand as a desirable and cost effective study destination. We would like to see further two-way exchanges of students, who are the leaders of the future for both our countries. The New Zealand Minister of Education visited Hungary last September to encourage such co-operation, including university partnerships.

To encourage people to people contacts, we have proposed a bilateral Working Holiday Scheme Agreement.  The Scheme would allow young people, between the ages of 18 and 30, to spend up to a year on holiday in each other's country, but permits them to study or work to support themselves while there.  It would overcome the normal difficulties associated with obtaining work permits while on holiday in a country.  I hope very much it may be possible for us to sign this Agreement in the near future. 

It may be possible too for the Working Holiday Scheme to take on an agricultural flavour, as there is excellent scope for exchanges between our two countries to facilitate agricultural development. Linked to this, trade in agri-tech goods also offers promising opportunities for expansion.

A New Zealand delegation from the Ministry of Social Development will be in Budapest next week to finalise negotiations on a Social Security Agreement with their Hungarian colleagues from the Ministry of Health, Social and Family Affairs. The Agreement will be of great benefit to Hungarians and New Zealanders who move between our two countries. In particular the agreement will assist Hungarians in New Zealand who wish to move back to Hungary to retire. 

There are other areas in which our two countries cooperate.

As you may be aware, New Zealand is a strong supporter of measures to protect the global environment. We were therefore delighted when Hungary joined the International Whaling Commission as another pro-conservationist country.  Your support for the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary at the 56th IWC meeting in Sorrento in July was particularly appreciated. I thank you for that.

We have not forgotten that we once worked together closely in the interests of agricultural trade liberalisation as members of the Cairns Group. Now that you are a member of the EU, we will value your perspectives on EU and regional issues.  You are well placed inside the EU to continue advocating reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. It is vital for your trading partners such as New Zealand that the EU maintain an open, liberal and transparent trading regime.

As I understand is the case also for Hungary, it is also vital for us that the current round of WTO multilateral trade negotiations, the Doha Round, is completed successfully.

We believe your membership of the EU will lead to increased bilateral trade. The EU, as a whole, is our second largest trading partner and a particularly important market for our high quality agricultural products.  But current levels underrate the potential that exists to increase trade between our two countries.

Our successes in the film industry, such as Lord of the Rings, have sparked interest in New Zealand as a tourist destination, but it has also given rise to new domestic industries such as special effects. Increasingly, we in New Zealand are developing new, high-tech, globally competitive, industries which offer scope for cooperation between us,

In conclusion, Mr President, my hope is that our two countries will continue to forge an even closer relationship based on the many areas of shared interest I have mentioned, both to advance our bilateral partnership but also to enable us, together, to promote those universal values and beliefs we both hold dear and on which are two modern democracies are based.

On a personal note, I should like to extend to you, and Madame Madl, our very best wishes for the future and to thank you again for receiving us so graciously in this marvellous and historic setting.

Thank you.