Speech To The India-NZ Business Council
Rt Hon Winston Peters
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Good morning. Namaskar.
The Chair and General Manager of the India New Zealand Business Council
Prime Minister Luxon and Minister of State Margherita
Indian High Commissioner Bhushan
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
It's a privilege to be with you today to offer some very brief reflections on the India-New Zealand relationship.
These reflections follow detailed speeches by Prime Minister Luxon and Minister of State Margherita. So, we won't seek to repeat what you have already heard. Rather, we will make just three fundamental and summarising observations.
Observation one: New Zealand wants closer, stronger relations with India.
New Zealand's Coalition Government has made clear over the past 18 months, through our actions and policies, that we intend to seriously lift our relations with India.
As Foreign Minister, we have spent much of this Parliamentary term travelling around the world advancing New Zealand's interests. But our very first visit outside Australia and the Pacific since returning as Foreign Minister was to India.
This selection of Gujarat and New Delhi as early visit destinations was very deliberate. Our government wanted to send an unambiguous signal to the people and Government of India that New Zealand wishes for our countries to draw ever closer – united by shared interests and a mutual desire to build deeper, mutually beneficial cooperation.
India's Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar, is one of the world's most impressive and astute statesmen. We have been pleased to work closely with him on this project of drawing our countries closer together.
And we are looking forward to meeting this afternoon with Minister of State Margherita, to discuss our building bilateral relationship.
This meeting will also provide an opportunity for us to exchange views on the heinous terrorist attack in Kashmir last month, developments between India and Pakistan in the last few days, and New Zealand's wish to help support a seriously rapid de-escalation of the situation.
Observation two: India's rise over the past generation has been seriously impressive.
There are few countries in the world that have been so dramatically transformed over the past 35 years as has India.
We have seen hundreds of millions of Indians lifted out of poverty; huge improvements in education, health and life expectancy; and a breathtaking economic expansion.
And all of this has been achieved while maintaining India's proud democratic tradition of settling the inevitable differences that emerge in a country of such immense scale and diversity at the ballot box.
When in Delhi last year, we visited the new Indian Parliament – whose carpets feature New Zealand wool – and got a first-hand sense of the scale and magnificence of Indian democracy.
India's rise has been a force for good in our region and for our world.
Observation three: New Zealand wants a broad-based relationship with India, as the Prime Minister said.
We want to draw closer with India not in one domain, but in many domains.
New Zealand and India are two of the world's great, long-standing democracies – and we have a shared objective of an open, free, democratic and peaceful Indo-Pacific region. To achieve that, we need to be cooperating in as many areas as possible.
We need to be working across the Indo-Pacific, including with Pacific Island countries.
We need to be helping to manage our increasingly contested and disordered strategic environment via more regular, intensive high-level dialogue.
We need to be addressing shared security and defence challenges, by embedding deeper engagement in these areas.
And the Prime Minister is right. We will be seriously boosting our diplomatic presence in India. We should have done so 40 years ago.
We need to be pursuing shared trade and economic opportunities, including in tourism and education.
And we need to be making the most of our intensifying people, sporting and cultural connections.
This audience will know well that, through the painstaking work of the governments, peoples and indeed businesses of India and New Zealand, a great foundation has been laid over the past 18 months.
There is so much potential in the relationship between New Zealand and India. Given the serious progress our two countries have made in the last 18 months, now is the time to work to realise that potential.
Thank you, and best of luck for the remaining conversations at this event today.
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