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?

Marine protected areas, and particularly no-take zones, are very effective in allowing regeneration of fish stocks.

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

I think that generally New Zealand is respected for the positions it takes because it thinks them through.

Well of course New Zealand isn't anti-American.

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.