Radhakrishnan PriyancaESTIMATES DEBATEIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 27 August.External Sector (continued)PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. It is indeed a pleasure to rise and share some of the discussion that was had at the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee as we talked about the fact that New Zealand's security and prosperity depends on the conditions within and our connections with the world. The fact remains that we must engage with and seek to influence other countries to our advantage in line with our values and interests as a nation. We heard from a range of Ministers who have responsibility for foreign affairs trade our defence force and customs who told us how we are indeed doing that—and that is this Government's focus.We heard from the Rt Hon Winston Peters the Minister of Foreign Affairs about the Pacific reset which is a reset of our regional relations with the Pacific Island nations. He told us that there were largely two components to it: one was the fact that the Pacific Island region is challenged by a broad range of challenges—like for example the impacts of climate change and the work that the Government is doing to decrease some of those vulnerabilities that various nations face and increase their resilience to deal with the impacts of climate change. The other of course is the fact that the Pacific is an increasingly contested strategic space and we need to maintain our voice and influence to work together with various Pacific Island nations. I actually want to point to one specific comment that the Minister made in response to specific questions about how we do that. He made it very clear that the Government's focus is not on imposing various measures but working with local cultures to determine what specific needs are in different Pacific nations and to make sure that we do it in a way that is acceptable following local consultation—and I thought that was incredibly important. The Minister also emphasised the importance of New Zealand's foreign engagement when it comes to addressing climate change and the amount in Budget 2018 was $300 million over four years an increase of about 50 percent to assist Pacific nations with climate change challenges.There was also discussion about the fact of course that we are a small nation that is incredibly reliant on trade and therefore some discussion around the various free-trade agreements (FTA) that are under way as well. Trade of course and establishing those relationships and strengthening the relationships that we have with various parts of the world is incredibly important to our economy as a country.There was discussion around the importance of securing a free-trade agreement with the United States where the Minister talked about the fact that that indeed is still very much on the table. The fifth round of negotiations for the New Zealand-European FTA took place in July as well where both parties are hopeful of striking a deal by the end of the year. We talked about the upgrade to the Singapore FTA as well.Another point that I want to make is about the discussions with the Minister of Customs at the time about the work that is under way in combating sexual exploitation of children. There was a huge amount of discussion at the select committee about this because there's an increasing focus within customs to address this. Budget 2019 proposes spending of nearly $10.3 million over the next four years for new policy initiatives within customs to combat the sexual exploitation of children. I just want to read this bit because it's incredibly important and a lot of time was spent on it within the select committee: The Minister told us that access to and distribution of child sexual abuse material across borders is a 'significant and increasing problem'. He said [that] the United Nations estimates that the criminal market for the global sexual exploitation of children generates between US$3 billion and US$20 billion a year. Also the Internet Watch Foundation reported a 57 percent increase of websites showing these kinds of images. Customs reported 1.4 million attempts over the past three years to import or export child sexual material over New Zealand's cyber border (excluding the Dark Web). This is an average of 1000 attempts a day." And so there was consensus across the select committee that this is indeed an incredible focus.There was also within the defence force very quickly I might add a huge focus to ensure that property plant and military equipment—that we need to keep us safe and keep our borders safe and that hasn't been upgraded over years—be upgraded. Thank you."