OPENING ADDRESS

ROTARY DISTRICT 9930 CONFERENCE
WAITOMO CIVIC CENTRE
TE KUITI

District Governor Geoff Kay, Director-elect of Rotary International Dato James Peter Chin, representative of other districts Les Dixon, Rt Hon David Lange, President of Te Kuiti Rotary Russell Thomson, Your Worship the Mayor Wally Bain, distinguished guests, Rotarians and partners.

It's a pleasure to be here tonight, as it always is to be back home in the King Country.

To our visitors I extend a welcome to Te Kuiti.

I compliment the Te Kuiti Rotary Club for the work they have put in to organise this Conference.

I further want to thank the members of Rotary for the good work they do as a service club in the community.

The active contribution of voluntary workers is what makes a better community.

So thank you for what you have done.

This weekend you have travelled to attend this important Rotary District Conference to address the Conference's important theme of 'Build the Future with Action and Vision'.

I want to suggest you may care to address what I consider important in building that future.

The issue I want to talk about is simply the question of listening to another point of view.

I should warn you there is a risk.

If you do listen you may have to change your views on many issues.

Some might think that's a bit rich coming from a politician, given that everyone complains that politicians don't listen enough.

That's probably true even though MPs spend a great deal of time listening to a great many points of view.

MPs listen in their electorate clinics.

Select committees listen.

Ministers listen to a stream of visitors and lobbyists, and they read the opinions of the people who write literally thousands of letters to the Government every week.

And one thing I can tell you after almost two and a half decades in politics is that those views grow more diverse every year.

I for one find that exciting as it reflects a society that is daily becoming more vibrant and diverse.

But here's the rub - you can't have comfortable diversity without tolerance.

And we won't have tolerance unless we work harder to listen to the other person's point of view, and see life through their eyes a little better.

You know, and I know, that in smaller communities we tend to know a little more of one another's business, and problems usually get sorted out by sitting down and talking them out.

But even in our small towns, I think we're not always inclined to see someone else's point of view if we don't know that person well.

Even in groups like this, where you meet for fellowship and out of a sense of community spirit, I wonder if you're really representative enough to be able to really listen to the community you seek to serve.

In a nutshell the problem is this: How can we listen to another viewpoint if we are not in a position to hear it?

In my place of work - Parliament - that is all changing.

In our first MMP Parliament that diversity I spoke about is all around us.

You can certainly sense other forces and hear other voices and viewpoints.

Today's Parliament is vastly different and, in my view, considerably improved by the influx of many more Maori MPs, the two Pacific Island MPs, plus Pansy Wong, our first MP from the Asian community.

The vitality that has been injected into the debating chamber by the Maori and Pacific Island speakers and their supporters in the gallery with haka and waiata have changed the place for ever.

They have changed it for the better.

We are now more representative of New Zealand.

Maori representation of at least 15 MPs is now approximately in line with the percentage of Maori in the population at large.

We are now in the position to hear other forces and feel the emotion of firmly held convictions.

The challenge for us now is to listen. The challenge for the community is to listen. For our future I hope we do.

I am confident that we can make further impressive progress on issues of crucial importance to Maori over the next three years.

I am proud that we have achieved major settlements and I can tell you that we will be working with Maori to achieve many more.

Our Coalition Agreement emphasises our commitment to working with Maori to achieve their full and active participation in New Zealand society.

We do all this with two principles in mind: justice and equity.

We are working to achieve improvements in the areas of importance for Maori: in education, in health, in housing, in income improvements and in the settling of Treaty claims.

But in doing this we are taking a multi-cultural approach.

The notion that we should try to create one people with only one viewpoint and only one way of seeing the world would be wrong.

One of the lessons of this century has been that all cultures must be given the chance to thrive.

What we are learning, as the global village becomes a reality, is that variety makes the world a more exciting place.

We are learning that a free economy offering everyone the chance to have their say and make their contribution is the best way to lift everyone's quality of life.

The challenge we have right now is to develop the kind of community that's prepared to say to everyone:

"Your voice will be heard - we will listen."

That was the idea New Zealanders had in mind when they chose a new voting system.

And that was the idea we sought to express as we formed the Coalition Government.

I think there were some pretty clear signs for us all to see in the last election.

The majority of New Zealanders endorsed the general direction New Zealand has been following.

But they also gave us clear notice.

New Zealanders were telling us, that they expect their politicians to show more cooperation and maturity.

They were telling us to listen more and find new ways to work together.

I welcome that because I have long argued that for our nation to succeed we must aim for the politics of inclusion.

Of course, in the abstract, that's easy to endorse.

But when you get down to the practical reality of particular issues, I think you'll find that people aren't always so ready to listen to the other person and the other point of view.

The politics of inclusion will only succeed when we are all more prepared to get to know the other person and listen to what they have to say, with an open mind.

I believe the Government has a significant role to play in this, by taking a lead.

It's what we sought when forming the Coalition Government.

Many thought it was impossible but by listening carefully to each other's views we constructed a Coalition Agreement which has as its core the promotion of opportunity and fairness.

That is why we are committed to resolving Treaty of Waitangi grievances - it is the fair thing to do, and it is the enlightened thing to do.

It extends opportunity to groups of people who for too long have been shut out of New Zealand's prosperity.

So I want to encourage everyone to listen carefully because by so doing you will get to understand your neighbour's problem, and maybe helping to solve it can ultimately be good for all of us.

There's a business training exercise I've heard of that shows how people look at the same task in different ways.

Apparently this exercise involves drawing an imaginary line on the floor and putting one person on each side.

The purpose is to get one person to convince the other, without force, to cross the line.

Apparently, the training organisation that uses this exercise in America finds that many of their clients just don't succeed. Try as they might, neither one can convince the other to cross the line.

But using the same exercise with Japanese clients, the trainers always get a different result.

With those classes, they find the two participants say to each other:

"If you'll cross the line, so will I."

They exchange places, and they both win.

I offer that as new way of looking at some issues that for a long time now, have had the potential to divide us.

I suggest we might just find that these may be issues which could be to the good of us all, if we were to spend a little more time looking at the other person's point of view.

That is why I would like to encourage organisations like yours to take the lead. If we could see more Maori in Rotary, and more Rotary on the marae, I think we could see more dialogue and more understanding.

I say that not meaning to single out these two groups, but to make the point that we need to be more inclusive, and we need to share our points of view between all our groups of interest, to make real progress as a maturing nation.

I believe we have the will as a nation to make that effort.

Last century most colonies ignored or repressed their indigenous peoples.

New Zealand, by contrast, argued that Maori must be brought into the governance of the new colony.

In the century and a half that followed, the commitment may have waxed and waned, but it is as strong today as it was then.

Today there are more Maori in the new Parliament than ever before, and I see great promise in that.

Our greatest moments as a nation, our greatest achievements, have not been factional.

Our greatest advances have come during those times when we have put aside the politics of privileged sectors or the competing demands of partisan groups.

I believe that this new Parliament and this new Coalition can mark just such a time - that we are at the start of a new era of participation and cooperation.

Thank you.

Ends