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Speech: Peters - Welcome for the Speaker of India

Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
18 SEPTEMBER 2016

Welcome speech for the Speaker of the Indian Parliament Mrs Sumitra Mahajan and her parliamentary colleagues.

Langham Hotel,
Crystal Room,
Auckland,
6.35pm, September 18, 2016

It is a delight to welcome the Speaker of the Indian Parliament Sumitra Mahajan to New Zealand.
Welcome Mrs Mahajan to you and your parliamentary colleagues.
“Aap sub ka swagat hai”

Long relationship

New Zealand’s ties with India have been in existence for a long time.
For example, the New Zealand Indian Central Association was formed here in New Zealand in 1926 by those who had come from India to live in New Zealand.
People of Indian-origin have made, and continue to make, an important contribution to the business, cultural and sporting life of New Zealand.
In fact, the 19th Governor-General of New Zealand and present Chair of the Commonwealth Foundation, Sir Anand Satyanand, was our first Governor-General of Indian descent.
Our long relationship is due to several factors:
We have a shared relationship in the Commonwealth.
We also share certain values.
Our societies are built firmly on the bedrock of democracy.
And India is the largest democracy in the world and as a fellow Commonwealth country we take a certain quiet pride in that fact.
As your great leader Mahatma Ghandi said:
Democracy must in essence mean the art and science of mobilising the entire physical, economic and spiritual resources of all the various sections of the people in the service of the common good of all.

Ties strengthening
As time moves on our relationship is becoming closer.
New Zealand, for example, supports India’s aspirations for permanent membership of the UN Security Council.
In April this year The Hindu newspaper in Chennai reported security systems in your parliament, and the Indian Space Research Organisation, were developed and installed by a New Zealand company.
And earlier this year the President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee also visited our country in what was the first visit here by a President of India.
During the visit he expressed his hope that the friendship between India and New Zealand would continue to strengthen.
In his speech he commended New Zealand’s tremendous progress in dairy development, food processing, communications and information technology, clean energy and water, disaster management, biotechnology, healthcare and services, to mention a few.
He added:
“We would very much like to enhance our bilateral co-operation in these areas, learn from the successful experience and practices of New Zealand and collaborate with you in creating new and innovative products and technology.”
During his visit Mr Mukherjee signed a deal opening the door for direct flights between our two countries with the aim of boosting trade and tourism.

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Brexit/CCER?
As to the future, more exciting possibilities exist.
With Brexit and Britain’s imminent departure from the EU, our political party, New Zealand First, sees this as an opportunity for the Commonwealth nations to draw much closer together economically.
The Commonwealth is already a dynamic powerhouse.
It crosses every time zone and trading session in the world.
It covers almost a quarter of the World’s land area.
Together, we have a population of over 2.3 billion, nearly a third of the world’s population, of which we in NZ are a small part.
In 2014 the Commonwealth produced GDP of $10.45 trillion, a massive 17% of gross world product.
The combined gross domestic product of Commonwealth countries is predicted to hit US$14 trillion by 2020.
We already have a model for what could happen with our Closer Economic Relations with Australia.
We believe we should now have “Closer Commonwealth Economic Relations”, or CCER.
A CCER that is about free trade.
It could be the means to bring in other Commonwealth states, alongside your country, which is an emerging economic giant.
Indeed – it could make the Commonwealth an economic colossus.
Thank you Mrs Mahajan, and your colleagues for coming to our country.
Once again welcome to New Zealand.
We hope you enjoy your time among us, and that you will return to India with happy, profitable and progressive memories.

ENDS

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