It’s a great pleasure to join you tonight and to welcome our distinguished Kiwi guests to our national capital.
This forum has always been defined by a spirit of mutual respect and shared affection.
It draws its enduring strength from the fact that the friendship between Australia and New Zealand feels so natural, and so comfortable.
That is true right across our parliaments, our business communities and our people.
One of the reasons so many of our citizens go across the Tasman and vice versa is because on either side of the ditch we feel at home.
All of this means that gatherings such as this one have a bigger task beyond promoting understanding, or fostering ties, or celebrating them.
This forum carries a responsibility to ensure that comfort doesn’t slide into complacency.
Australia and New Zealand have an extraordinary foundation of shared history and shared values and on that we have a built a thriving framework for economic co-operation, with our Single Economic Market.
When you look at everything happening in the world today, when you think about the global economic uncertainty confronting us all, these ties have never been more valuable or more important.
The best way for us to continue to maximise the value of our economic partnership, is to keep modernising it.
This was a central theme of the discussions Prime Minister Luxon and I had in Queenstown last month.
Business leaders from both sides of the Tasman made the point that the Single Economic Market cannot be treated as a ‘set and forget’.
Breaking down barriers for business and workers, building trade bridges and integrating our economies is a constant and evolving process.
It means anticipating and shaping the economic change that is ahead, in the interests of both our nations.
Making seamless co-operation the starting point and the default setting in growing sectors like the digital economy.
Better aligning our work on meeting new challenges – from cyber security to climate reporting.
And learning from each other when it comes to the shared priorities of our people and our economies.
Everything from boosting housing construction and streamlining approvals, to making sure our children can navigate social media safely.
In business – and in government – there is no finish line.
No moment when you sit back and say the job is done.
There are always new pressures to manage, new challenges to meet, new uncertainties to confront.
Most importantly, there are always new opportunities to seize and to share.
That is particularly true for New Zealand and Australia in this decade.
Here, in the fastest growing region of the world in human history.
At a time when our greatest strengths – our skills, our smarts, our high-value and high-quality products – are in global demand.
We have every reason to be optimistic for what we can achieve, together.
Just across from here - on the other side of the lake - is the New Zealand Memorial.
Fittingly, it stands on either side of Anzac Parade.
Two curved bronze sculptures, each more than 11 metres tall, representing the two handles of a traditional Maori flax basket.
The paving at the base records the names of the battlefields in which Australian and New Zealand troops have served and sacrificed together.
The inscription for this memorial is a single line:
“Each of us at the handle of the basket”
That is what Australia and New Zealand mean to each other.
We are there for each other.
We carry the weight together.
And we go forward together.
Thank you all for adding to the strength of our bond.
Have a lovely evening.