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.

We need a lot of thinking and ideas. We need all the innovators, particularly with the new sustainable technologies - how do we get them to affordability so that people can generate clean energy?

I think it's inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic and that would reflect the reality that New Zealand is a totally sovereign-independent 21st century nation 12,000 miles from the United Kingdom.

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth. Security issue or no security issue, there would need to be a focus on it.

I only take on roles that I'm passionate about. Life is too short to do things that you're not happy with.

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.

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.