‘There’s always a way to talk’

[Address to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Old Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament Buildings.] National Chair of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, Dr Sarena Kelly, Executive Director of the Council for International Development Todd Cleaver, Past-President of the NZIIA Dr James Kember, Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade Bede Corry, Deputy Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassadors and High Commissioners, board members of the NZIIA and distinguished guests, good afternoon. With Parliament rising this week, we wanted to offer some reflections on the state of the international order and on aspects of New Zealand’s foreign policy response to the order-shattering times we live in. Context But first, context. It is unchallenged that we face the worst international conditions since 1945. Back then, as a consequence of that dark time, a war-weary world came together in San Francisco to sign the United Nations Charter. There was hope the world could be brought back to peaceful habits, and for eight decades one could sustain that hope, even as an often fragile, and sometimes precarious post-War equilibrium was maintained. Yet like all moments of