O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Madam Speaker. Look I'm delighted as with other colleagues that we're actually having this—well it's called a debate but I was saying to someone who may or may not be in the gallery that it's not going to be so much a debate as a discussion. So perhaps on that thing as a politician I'm actually telling the truth. We are completely I think pleased as a committee—and I was fortunate to chair the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee in the last term of Parliament that saw this come through—and what we are pleased about is the number of submitters who came forward. I want to thank them for letting their voices be heard because fundamentally any parliamentary inquiry is not so much about what we write as about what we hear. But it is important as well in thanking the submitters I would say to acknowledge the clerks on our committee and those particularly who wrote the report. You know the MPs will go through it. We add strongly to it of course but there's enormous support which is given to us and I want to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well. Often a lot of these recommendations can challenge the work that's being done pointing out areas for improvement. But I would say that that's building on already a service of excellence particularly into the Pacific. I thought I'd just make a couple of I hope salient points. The first one is that our aid budget our aid contribution—particularly into the Pacific—must increase. It doesn't really matter what hue or colour of Government is in. We should try if you will in a bipartisan way to commit to that. There's well-known international targets which we are well short of so that has to grow. But part of that will ultimately come down to what some have touched on as the transparency of what we do in the aid project. That was a piece of submission or pieces of submission which came time and time again which was where is the money being spent and are we achieving the outcomes that we sought and it has been one of the recommendations of this inquiry that that transparency be made very very clear. It's my hope—and it was certainly something I pushed for and spoke to during the inquiry—that if our overseas development and aid is transparent is open and is very very clear then New Zealanders will understand more of why we send money overseas. We all get used to hearing from New Zealanders Well why should we be sending our money overseas when there are so many problems here at home?" Again if we can have a clear ambitious conversation with Kiwis I think they would be more than willing to see that aid budget increase. The second element that came out for me that I think is important is that we cooperate with our allies in the Pacific. Obviously those we're trying to help but we know that there are many other countries be it Australia the UK France to name just a few and the EU—I'd better not be remiss there—or the United States. We need to work cooperatively with them. It's probably a slight bias on my part having lived and worked in Fiji for a number of years that there was often a bit of repetition: the Kiwis were doing one thing and the Aussies were doing this similar thing. That cooperation is going to be vitally important. It's only touched on in passing but one of the important bits of feedback that I certainly heard was that the Pasifika community or communities want us again to listen. It's very easy to have what I'd describe as the neo-colonial mind-set which is that we go over with all our views of what is the right moral ethical political democratic structures and try to foist them on these communities and that must stop. We need to be people who listen and respect those cultures and their traditions and then try to help with them—obviously encouraging where we think change is needed but it's encouragement and not enforcing. The last point I'd make—and it's a geopolitical one—is it's abundantly obvious that there are tensions in the globe at the moment. It has to be said—and I will keep saying it—that it's particularly with China and its influence coming into the Pacific. It's not purely altruistic and look to be fair no country's aid programme is purely altruistic—ours included. But China's very interested in these smaller States because they bring votes at the UN and unfortunately we've seen how that's panned out in some of issues over the last year. But what's important and what I think I heard was not so much that our Pacific neighbours want more money from us; in fact they don't want us to be competing with China—there's no way we can. There's no way we can. What they want from New Zealand is actually a relationship. The Islands have a longstanding relationship with New Zealand. It's valued. They see us as cousins brothers sisters and they want us to acknowledge that and in a sense to—and rightly—treat them as equals. So I think that's for me a really important element that in that strategic or geostrategic battle if you will. It's not about money; it's about relationships and let's hope that this inquiry assists in that."