APEC Ministers' Welcome Reception

Wednesday 10 March 2004

Good evening APEC Ministers, Mario Artaza, Executive Director of APEC, the delegations and all the other support staff tied up with such a major event. On a more local front, greetings to our Minister, Pete Hodgson, Bryce Heard of the Crown Research Institute and Tim Gibson of Trade and Enterprise. Greetings to Christchurch.

Many generations ago now tangata whenua, Ngai Tahu chose to welcome the first European settlers here in part for the new technology and science they had to offer. This welcome to the best of the new is still a constant of Christchurch and Canterbury today.

In the sweep of history we are still a very young nation. We manage to be both the world's best Garden City and at the same time the undisputed hub for high-tech development in electronics and computers in New Zealand.

We are a city drawing back more new and old species of bird life into our city limits with each year as we clean up our rivers and streams. At the same time we are a core player in innovation and scientific research in New Zealand.

We are known as the gateway to the Antarctic for many nations. Our own, and long term guests such as the United States Antarctic programme support staff. We also point to the Antarctic as a model for peaceful development of our scientific knowledge.

It was there on that last very cold frontier that a new hopeful chapter for humanity began. This story, unlike that of every other continent, tells us that we should, and can, develop our knowledge without having the discord and conflict that has marked so much our history as a species.

Christchurch the gateway has also been Christchurch the crucible. It was at our Canterbury University that Ernest Rutherford, who went on to become known as one of the main architects of the atomic age, first studied. No discovery in the history of technology can better illustrate the potential in science for both great good and profound evil as this one has.

Our universities and other places of higher learning still share in our strong tradition of innovation, creativity and determination.

On the global entrepreneurial tables we have been known to come in as high as second in the world for entrepreneurial ability. At the same time our tiny size on the global stage forces us to share resources and knowledge more readily perhaps than those with the luxury of size and larger scale on their side. It is a way of working that I must take this opportunity to urge you all to begin to consider.

Our North Island recently went through some of the most extreme unseasonable flooding and weather in our history. It is not just us, weather extremes have become an unpleasantly persistent part of life on much of Earth in recent years.

As a witness just a few days later I was struck with how resolutely, and completely the floods and chaos had ignored all the borders and boundaries we tend to confine our normal thoughts to. As a species it does appear that we are up against some pressing common good problems.

Events such as this where we perhaps get a chance to look past our own work and toward our shared future can only be for the good. I am delighted that Christchurch can play some small part in furthering this aim.