Grounded in international human rights, gender equality doesn’t just improve the lives of individual women, girls, and their families; it makes economic sense, strengthens democracy, and enables long-term sustainable progress.

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.

I'm not into power for the sake of it.

Fortunately New Zealand doesn't have land borders so we are able to be somewhat more rigorous on who gets in and out of our country than perhaps some people.

In terms of protecting ourselves, the main issues are around how do we protect our borders [from illegal migrants and livestock and plant diseases], how do we protect our fisheries?

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?

Although biodiversity loss continues globally, many countries are significantly slowing the rate of loss by shoring up protected natural areas and the services they provide, and in expanding national park systems with tighter management and more secure funding.