UN General Assembly
2012

often we have seen the Council fail to respond in a timely way to requests for help — in Rwanda, in Guinea, in Darfur and in Somalia. Too often it has been a case of too little, too late. In all of these cases we have seen good leadership from within the African Union, and that leadership deserves a timely and constructive response from New York. Many of those here will be aware that New Zealand is an energetic candidate for election to the Security Council for the term from 2015-2016. I can assure the Assembly that it will hear more from us on these topics over the next two years. We are a small country with a big voice and an approach that is fair-minded and constructive. In the past few days. the Assembly has heard from both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas. We are now on notice that the issue of Palestinian status in the United Nations will come before the Assembly during this session. We look forward to seeing the text