UN General Assembly
2019

The young Muslim boy in Kilbirnie, New Zealand, wanted to know if I could grant him all of those things. My fear is, that as a leader of a proudly independent nation, that is one thing that I cannot achieve alone, not anymore. In our borderless and technologically connected world, commentary on race, acts of discrimination based on religion, gender, sexuality or ethnicity are not neatly confined behind boundaries — they are felt globally. The fact that I received so many letters from Muslim children from around the world in the weeks after 15 March speaks to the power of connection.