I don't know that you're ever going to persuade New Zealanders that they're not going to own their own homes and I'm not going to try.

People are optimistic about the future.

No country will reach its full potential if its female citizens do not enjoy full equality.

As New Zealanders, we've been in on the United Nations from the very beginning, played a role in the drafting of the charter - it means a lot to us that those processes are followed.

We need innovation. We need great ideas that can be simply and effectively produced all over the place.

I've been round Japan, Hong Kong, Korea, and China in the last few months and the message that I've been taking is that New Zealand is building an up market dynamic into a connected economy. And that we are not the old-fashioned, ship mutton kind of product the people associate their export in work.

If you neglect those who are currently poor and stable, you may create more poor and unstable people. There has been a tremendous concentration of donor interest in countries that are seen as particularly fragile - but it becomes harder to mobilise money for sub-Saharan, plain poor countries.