(Ambassador Huebner gave the opening remarks at the United States-New Zealand 2011 Partnership Forum. He stood in for the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who had to cancel her New Zealand trip following the fatal shooting of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.) 

Thank You.

E ngaa mana, e ngaa reo, rau rangatira maa
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou, katoa.
E ngaa tini mate
Haere, haere, moe mai raa.
Kia ora huihui tatou katoaa.

Thank you, Senator Bayh, for that kind introduction. 

Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your warm, motivational remarks, and for the great leadership that you have exerted in moving the NZ-US bilateral relationship forward. Your firm commitment, clear vision, collaborative approach, and unambiguously positive tone have made all the difference.

And of course, thank you to the NZ-US Council and the US-NZ Council for asking me to speak this morning. I know that you are profoundly disappointed that I’m standing here. I’m not being over-sensitive -- my friend Steven Jacobi was quite clear about it. This isn’t my first time as a last-minute Cabinet Secretary stand-in, though, so I’ll do my best.

I do greatly appreciate the opportunity to address the United States-New Zealand Partnership Forum because it has played such an important role in reinvigorating the bilateral relationship. The Forum focuses attention, builds consensus, deepens key personal relationships, and reminds us why we are such special friends. And that is important. Although our respective attention sometimes drifts toward crises or fads du jour – or is diverted by occasional disagreements – we are indeed special friends, approaching family. 

Americans have been visiting the shores of Aotearoa since shortly after the birth of the American nation. Since at least 1797 American whalers and other business interests were a meaningful presence here.  The United States appointed its first Consul, James R. Clendon, in 1838 in the Bay of Islands, before the birth of the modern New Zealand nation.

Although my research at the NZ archives may be faulty, it appears that the American Consul was instrumental in creating the final English-language draft of the Treaty of Waitangi, as advisor to Captain Hobson.  I wish my friend Atty-General Finlayson were here to confirm this for me, but it appears from my research that Consul Clendon provided the paper on which the Treaty was written, and he appears to have signed the Treaty twice – once on behalf of Chief Pomare and once directly himself.

There is also the little matter of the debt, which I'm going to talk to the Governor General about tonight.  The first Government House in new Zealand was actually the Consul's house, which he sold to the new colonial government as its first seat in Russell.  From what I can tell in teh archives, the purchase price was not fully satisfied.

Since then, Americans and Kiwis have continued to face the challenges and opportunities of the world standing shoulder-to-shoulder as partners, friends, and allies … not gaming or undercutting each other as competitors.

Perhaps the best illustration of the depth of our friendship was when the American fleet and tens of thousands of Yankee Marines and soldiers were welcomed to Wellington and Auckland to protect the Aotearoa homeland from attack from Asia during World War II. We celebrate next year the 70th anniversary of their arrival.

Our relationship, though, is not an historical artifact … curious, quaint, and receding in importance in a changing world. Rather, our relationship remains a critically important and stabilizing influence in a world where the tectonic plates of politics, economics, security, opportunism, religion, and ideology are constantly grinding, slipping, and rupturing … and creating rubble not only directly above the fault lines themselves but vast distances away. Our relationship is wired into our civic and cultural DNA. At a conference devoted largely to commerce, I was delighted to hear so many speakers acknowledge first principles, which in the interests of time I will not repeat.

Even the closest of relationships, though, require constant effort and attention. At times over much of the past 25 years insufficient attention was paid, and focus blurred. At least at an inter-governmental level.  For a variety of reasons, due to the effort of many people – including Prime Minister Helen Clarke, President George W. Bush, and the two Councils hosting this week’s Forum – that has been changing.

Momentum continues to build … even if we focus just on the short number of months since the last Partnership Forum in October 2009.  Last year, 932 U.S. Government officials visited New Zealand on official business, by far the largest number in history.  And that does not include the army of American scientists who spent time in New Zealand en route to Antarctica.  In the 14 months that I have served as Ambassador, I have been privileged to welcome 1,116 U.S. officials to Aotearoa, including some of the most influential players in American governance, such as:

Hillary Clinton, the first Secretary of State to visit Wellington in more than 25 years; 

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell … three times; 

The U.S. Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs; Special Representative to Muslim Communities;
          
Our Ambassador At-Large for War Crimes;
          
The Secretary of the Navy;
          
More than two dozen senior U.S. military officers, including the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Supreme Allied Commander, the U.S. Army Pacific Commander, and, just last week, the Commander of the 7th Fleet;

The Head of the National Science Foundation, the Under-Secretary of the Department of Energy, Secretary Clinton’s Senior Science Advisor;

A delegation of senior officials from our Departments of Agriculture and Commerce visited for a week to discuss agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and food security;

At this Forum alone, we have the highest-level American delegation, I believe, to have ever visited New Zealand at the same time for the same purpose.

In terms of the content of collaboration – where the rubber hits the road – the momentum is even more striking. There are too many advances to catalog: I'll mention just a few:

In perhaps the most exciting development, the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Green House Gas Emissions was launched through close cooperation between New Zealand (which proposed the idea and had highly skilled advocates in Ministers Tim Groser and David Carter) and the United States (where Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack ponied up US$ 90 million in seed money and worked the phones tirelessly to help bring on other partner nations).

Prime Minister Key led a Kiwi delegation to the inaugural Nuclear Security Summit convened by President Obama in Washington, DC last year.

President Obama prioritized the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a strategic objective.

Secretary Clinton and her highly respected counterpart Minister Murray McCully restarted a bilateral strategic dialogue which has already proceeded through three sub-ministerial sessions.

Together we have held two sub-ministerial trilateral discussions with our Australian friends, the first in decades.

A joint delegation of senior officials from the U.S. Departments of State and Defense visited Wellington a year ago to discuss the security cooperation landscape ahead of us … rather than the one in the rear-view mirror.

Just two months ago our countries signed our first ever formal agreement to share best practices about natural disaster preparedness and management, and to launch a regular personnel exchange program of our respective disaster experts. 

We have become close partners in efforts to strengthen international aviation security, and our joint efforts have yielded significant advances, including the signing of a historic Declaration on Aviation Security last fall by the 190 member countries of the International Civil Aviation Organization. 

Just last month our countries signed many more agreements – I won't go over those - I'll simply mention the hard work and sharp vision of both Secretary Gates and Minister Dr. Wayne Mapp  (who I consider one of New Zealand's civic treasures) our respective service men and women are not only serving together overseas, but are preparing to train together once more.

Beyond the Govt-to-Govt level, there have been dozens of impactful new collaborations started, including last week’s Inaugural International Cancer Symposium in Wellington, organized in collaboration between the University of Otago Medical School and the Mayo Clinic.

We've already heard about the Wellington Declaration – I need not talk about that again, except to say that it provides a smart framework which will channel our efforts and priorities: including climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, renewable energy, and disaster management.

And, of course, on the commercial front, the interaction between our two countries are growing, including:
          
The launch and success of the 2 Degrees mobile network operation that has increased competition and benefited Kiwi consumers;
          
The growing true collaboration – NOT zero sum bleed-off – between U.S. and Kiwi film industries;
          
The superb business relationship between Air New Zealand and Boeing – two best of breeds; 

The exciting business expansion plans of other companies such as Lockheed;

And the extensive, growing, but often overlooked linkages between the start-up markets in our two countries.

If one focuses not only on goods but on services, tourism, investment flows, taxes and fees paid, and other exchanges of value, New Zealand’s economic relationship with America dwarfs by far – and will continue to dwarf – all but its relationship with Australia. 

In conclusion, I would say of course there remains much work to be done, which is why we are all here.

I remember it being emphasized at Ambassador Boot Camp that Chiefs of Mission should concern themselves with the implementation – but not the substance of – policy. Nonetheless, I’d like to presume to suggest four points to consider as we do our work:

First, the TPP: what matters is the strategic opportunity and the long-term benefits of a fair and balanced deal – not the illusory perfect deal. What does NOT matter is the short-term scorecard of who won or lost more points, or what transitory political capital was accrued or spent. The landmines in the road ahead are not substantive in my view, they are over-reaching, over-playing, and over-confidence.

Second, innovation. The future prosperity of our 2 nations is dependent on creativity, innovation, and efficient provision of value-added services. It would be an error to under-estimate the role of world class intellectual property protection and enforcement as the necessary foundation for such an economy.

Third, the nature of future security challenges. Two of the most significant risks that we face are new to our consciousness … commercial and financial vulnerability to cyber disruption, and the resulting social, economic, and political instability if climate change impacts sea levels, food supplies, availability of fresh water, and infectious disease as the weight of scientific opinion believes it will. Re cyber security, the massive and apparently coordinated attack this month on Canadian financial and government institutions demonstrates the nature of the challenge we all face ... and that remoteness and geniality are not a shield.

Fourth, youth. In expanding and deepening our bilateral relationship, it is essential that we harness, include, and empower those who will be running our governments and our economies in the future. We cannot effectively plan for the future without soliciting, engaging, and actually preparing those who will be our future. That’s why what excites me most about this week is the innovation of a parallel Future Leaders Forum, and the collaboration among the Councils, Fulbright, and the Embassy that made it possible. I hope that we quickly evolve to the point of having youth present is not a novelty and we don't sit them in the back out of the way. 
            
I'd like to ask all of our Kiwi youth who are here for the forum to stand up – quickly, as we're running short of time. And can we have the American scholars stand up, please.  If you see these guys around the halls, don't assume they're waiters and ask them for a coffee ... engage them in conversation – they're a little shy and they tend to clique. 

That all sounds like a tall order, doesn’t it? But it's really not.

Perhaps, but I have great faith in the pragmatic, crafty, tenacious idealists that our two societies produce, including those in the room here today.

Thanks to all of you for your role in enhancing the partnership between our two great countries, and thanks for letting me speak in place of the secretary this morning. Thank you.

From the US Embassy in Wellington.