Quote

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 recognise that fishing is perhaps not the most high-employment industry in this country, but it's a symbol of what we lost when we entered the E.U.: control over national resources that, if we retained them, we could have husbanded in our interest and, indeed, in the interest of others.

New Zealand's food and beverage industry is the lynchpin of the country's prosperity. Which may explain why it has concentrated their governments' minds.

If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.

This is the difficulty about talking about it without sounding big-headed, but you cannot speak of New Zealand now without my involvement in what it has become.

Sustainable fishing is a fraud. It's a marketing term that really means 'business as usual.'

New Zealand is not a small country but a large village.

It's fair to say that, for much of my lifetime, New Zealand certainly was a property-owning democracy and working people, ordinary people, had assets.

I was born in New Zealand, so I have a lot of family there.

I do think of myself very strongly as a New Zealander, but when I moved out to the States, I was aware that I didn't want to just live in a satellite community of only other New Zealanders.