To the powers, to the
voices, to the four winds: I greet you all.
I have addressed the Assembly in Te Reo Maori,
the indigenous language of New Zealand, and I bring
warm Pacific greetings from all New Zealanders.
I am deeply honoured to lead New Zealand’s
delegation to the General Assembly for the first time.
Like every New Zealand Prime Minister since 1945, I
stand here today to reaffirm my country’s commitment
to the United Nations and the United Nations Charter.
The founding Members of the United Nations
gathered in San Francisco in 1945 to create this
Organization out of the ashes of the most destructive
war and the most debilitating depression in modern
history. They believed in the larger freedom of a world
where collective action might avert common crises.
They believed in the rule of law, by which all States
would be held to a universal standard, and in a world
where all peoples, faiths and cultures could flourish.
They believed in a future in which every human being
would be free from want and free from fear. And they
wanted an international Organization and architecture
that could deliver those benefits.
New Zealand was active among those founding
Members in San Francisco. And, as a small,
independent and diverse country in the Pacific, New
Zealand still has a stake in the United Nations — this
great meeting place for all States.
I have benefited personally from efforts to secure
those ideals. My family fled persecution in Europe, and
I was privileged to grow up in a new world where a
child of immigrants is now accorded the extraordinary
privilege of leading his country and addressing this
Assembly on its behalf.
We meet at a time of many challenges. With
130 heads of State and Government assembled here
this week, the present session of the General Assembly
represents our greatest opportunity since the 2005
World Summit to reaffirm our collective resolve. New
Zealand embraces that opportunity. Today, I will focus
on some of the most pressing issues demanding
collective responses from us.
The crisis in the global economy continues. We
must remain resolute in our efforts to stabilize the
global economy in order to permit a return to
sustainable growth. New Zealand welcomes the actions
of the Group of 20 (G-20) over the past year. But, in
commending those efforts, we call on the G-20 to heed
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the voices of the world’s small economies and to
ensure that they are also heard in global decision-
making.
Free and fair trade will be the principal engine for
driving developing countries out of poverty and
bringing greater prosperity to all. An essential
component in our response to the global economic
crisis must therefore be a balanced and ambitious
conclusion to the Doha Round of world trade talks. A
genuinely global agreement that reduces tariffs,
eliminates export subsidies, reduces domestic subsidies
and increases market access will see benefits flow to
all States. At a time when all countries are suffering
from the brunt of the current economic crisis, further
delay is inexcusable.
As one of the world’s first truly open economies,
New Zealand has an unwavering commitment to trade
liberalization and to the pursuit of bilateral, regional
and global free trade agreements. We support the call
of the Secretary-General for the immediate suspension
of price controls and other agricultural trade
restrictions, in order to reduce soaring food prices and
help millions cope with the highest food prices in
30 years.
Therefore, I call on all those States and groupings
that have broken their undertakings and reintroduced
protectionist measures to reconsider. Those actions are
as harmful as they are unacceptable. Agriculture, which
is so important for developing countries in particular, is
one of the sectors most affected.
The escalation of poverty is a result of the
economic crisis. New Zealand is, naturally, proud of
the efforts of the United Nations Development
Programme to strengthen its focus as the largest United
Nations development agency on poverty and the
achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
For its part, New Zealand pledges to continue to
increase its official development assistance, with a
clear focus on the Pacific Islands region. Aid
effectiveness is just as important as the quantum of aid.
That is why, last month, we committed to the Cairns
Compact, which will strengthen development
coordination in the Pacific islands.
The major focus of the General Assembly this
year must be on the challenge of climate change.
Climate change demands innovation and a global
response. The world cannot afford to contemplate
failure at Copenhagen. Political leadership is needed,
and it is on display.
At the Summit on climate change this week, the
leaders of the world’s three biggest economies showed
their determination both to make Copenhagen a success
and to take action themselves. All countries must take
action that reflects our individual circumstances,
responsibilities and capabilities.
For our part, New Zealand is committed to
securing a durable and meaningful agreement on
climate change — an agreement that is both
environmentally effective and economically efficient. I
have set a target for New Zealand of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by 10 to 20 per cent below
1990 levels by 2020, if there is a comprehensive global
agreement. That amounts to a per capita drop of 35 to
42 per cent since 1990.
New Zealand is acutely conscious that most of
our greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock
methane emissions, which so far no technology can
reduce. At the same time we are proud of our role as a
food producer to the world and the contribution we can
make to assuring food security for the world’s people.
Our challenge is to find a way to balance growth
in agricultural production with the need to reduce
emissions and reach climate change targets.
That is not just a challenge for New Zealand, but
one for the world. Agricultural emissions make up
14 per cent of all emissions worldwide. As demand for
food rises, so will those emissions. Yet so far the only
known way to achieve emission reductions from
agriculture is through reductions in output, which is
not an acceptable response — not for New Zealand,
and not for a growing world that seeks freedom from
hunger.
A better response to this challenge must be found.
In my view, the response must draw on the power and
possibility of science. Just as New Zealand is proud of
its agricultural producers, so are we proud of our role
in agricultural research. This research has resulted in
scientific and technological advances that have
improved production and fed virtually millions of
people.
But advancing research in the area of emission
reduction requires a commitment so broad that it is
beyond the capacity of any one individual country.
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That is a challenge that requires collective action, and
it is collective action that I call for today.
New Zealand has developed a proposal for a
global alliance on the reduction of agricultural
emissions. This alliance would undertake international
research and investment into new technologies and
practices to help reduce agriculture-related emissions
and would seek to achieve greater coordination of
existing efforts.
Through a global alliance we can find solutions
faster, make better use of the money that is being spent
around the world and encourage all countries and
companies to do more. We have been delighted with
the interest that our proposal has received so far, and
we will continue working with others to explore the
concept. Today, my call to other agricultural producers
of the world is to rise to this challenge and join New
Zealand in this research effort.
I now want to address some of the security crises
that we confront. Yesterday I had the honour to observe
the high-level Security Council meeting on
disarmament and non-proliferation. As a country with a
proud record of promoting nuclear disarmament and
non-proliferation, I was heartened by the expressions
of support for a world free of nuclear weapons. We
must all take full advantage of this historic moment to
advance the nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation
agenda. We owe it to our generation and to those who
follow us to move our vision for a world free from
nuclear weapons forward. As a proudly nuclear-free
nation and a country that has been at the forefront of
that debate since the 1970s, New Zealand stands ready
to play its part.
We are optimistic about the prospects for
progress. Last week, New Zealand presided over the
General Conference of the International Atomic Energy
Agency in Vienna, Austria. Preventing the spread of
nuclear weapons through the implementation of
safeguards under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
is a fundamental pillar of the Agency’s work. Next year
sees the quinquennial review conference of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
New Zealand will actively work with our New
Agenda Coalition partners for a meaningful outcome at
that conference to bring us closer to a truly secure
world.
We will also continue to address the humanitarian
harm caused by conventional weapons. We will work
for a robust, action-oriented outcome later this year at
the second review conference of the Ottawa
Convention on Landmines.
Looking back, I am proud of the role that New
Zealand was able to play in the negotiation of the
Convention on Cluster Munitions. The Government
attaches priority to passing legislation to enable us to
ratify this very significant treaty. New Zealand also
continues to play its part in maintaining and promoting
international peace and security.
Peacekeeping remains one of this Organization’s
most essential tasks and most solemn responsibilities to
its Members. While United Nations peacekeeping has
been significantly strengthened since the testing it
underwent in the 1990s, the demands now being placed
on it are severe.
I want to express my profound gratitude to those
civilians and military personnel who place their lives at
risk to support peace and live up to the ideals of the
Charter of the United Nations. Ensuring that United
Nations peacekeeping is as effective and responsive as
possible must therefore remain one of the
Organization’s most urgent priorities.
The United Nations provides the legal mandate —
and often the operational effectiveness — for our joint
efforts to achieve and maintain peace and security. New
Zealand is firmly committed to supporting United
Nations peacekeeping — both its own operations and
others that it has mandated, such as those in which we
are involved in Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands and
Timor-Leste.
All too often, however, the United Nations has
found itself unable to respond to emerging crises. New
Zealand therefore strongly supports the concept of
responsibility to protect. I am pleased at the solid
foundation that the General Assembly’s recent debate
on that responsibility has laid for its implementation.
New Zealand also strongly supports the
International Criminal Court (ICC). It is a fundamental
tenet of our domestic legal systems that wrongdoers
must be brought to justice. The ICC is the mechanism
for applying that same principle to persons accused of
the most serious international crimes.
New Zealand takes very seriously its
responsibilities for creating and maintaining peace and
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security in its region and in the world. I am therefore
pleased to confirm New Zealand’s candidature for the
United Nations Security Council for 2015-2016 in the
elections to be held in 2014. In advancing its
candidature, New Zealand does so as a State committed
to upholding the international rule of law and to
providing a strong and principled Pacific voice on
behalf of small States like ourselves with an interest in
a fairer and more secure world.
We all have a stake in a world where peace and
the rule of law prevail, where all States are secure and
can prosper and where all people are guaranteed the
human rights and fundamental freedoms promised
them in the Charter.
But we also know that solutions to the problems
we collectively face do not lie with inspirational goals
and promises that can be — and far too often are —
quickly and quietly forgotten and ignored. Hard,
pragmatic decisions must be made. Enforceable
solutions must be implemented.
We know that effective, collective action is in
every country’s long-term, national interest. That is
what New Zealand believed in 1945, and I recommit
now to taking action to live up to the ideals of the
United Nations Charter, here, in this great Hall, this
evening.