Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to start as others have done by noting how rare this debate is and how delighted I am that it has come to this House. As the Hon Gerry Brownlee just noted much of the work was done by the previous committee and I do want to commend both chairs and—many of the members have actually carried through so all of us for kind of doing this work and also the—[Interruption] not you! Ha ha!—Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the work that they've done in this space. New Zealand does have a very special relationship with the Pacific. We are a Pacific Island nation and from what we heard from the NGOs and the people who came to us to submit who do that work on the front lines in the various other Pacific Island nations we are seen as having a very special relationship with the Pacific.I do want to focus on some of the recommendations because I mean this is a good piece of work and we heard about all of the good work that's being done but there are recommendations that I think we need to highlight for the work going forward which was the purpose of having this inquiry when either I the Hon Gerry Brownlee or the Hon Aupito William Sio moved to have the inquiry done. I do want to turn to one of the main areas that I think was an area of criticism which was that New Zealand has moved our aid model to a trade-for-aid focus and that that meant that we were seeking what's called mutual benefit and that meant that sometimes we were moving support and funding away from things that were purely beneficial to a Pacific community like education programmes—whether it was rainbow empowerment whether it was women's programmes—to an aid model that didn't necessarily benefit everyone other than those who already had access to an international trade arena. So that was one of the things that we do need to look at more carefully.What we heard over and over again as a compliment but also as an area to strengthen was that we need to partner more closely with those already doing the work that we want to enhance on the ground. So we do have what MFAT are calling their Partnering for Impact strategy going forward and I'd like to see more and more of that where we acknowledge that the values that we want to enhance—whether it's environmental values whether it's feminism whether it's democracy—already exist in the island nations that we are supporting and that we need to help enhance the voices and the work of those who are already helping their communities advance in that way and have done so for years and years rather than to impose upon them from an outside perspective. We are doing that but more of that is what the recommendation is. What I do also love is that the recommendations focus on continued enhancement and strengthening of democratic and electoral processes including with special focus on women's engagement in democracy. So we would like to see more of that and again through partnership with women and men on the ground who've already begun that work.COVID has hit and although it hasn't in terms of the disease hit the Pacific we know that economies are collapsing and so the focus—and we've been told this by officials even today in the annual reviews—must be aid but also debt alleviation. We can't rely on aid alone because the devastation to Pacific economies is too huge. So we do have to look at the way we restructure the debts we use our political democratic influence in international forums whether it's with the IMF with the World Bank or with private banks that own these debts to lower the interest rates to lower the cost to Pacific nations who are already absolutely struggling.Finally I would say that although it is wonderful that we have undertaken to supply the COVID vaccine to six Pacific nations we have taken the funding out from aid. So what we could do instead is help lift trade rules at the World Trade Organization on 1 and 2 March when they next meet to make the vaccine more affordable and available to the people of the Global South including the Pacific so that our aid dollars can be spent where they are most needed and we can combat the global pandemic together which is the only way we will overcome it. Thank you.