'Never look back' is my philosophy.

As New Zealanders, we’ve been in on the United Nations from the very beginning, played a role in the drafting of the charter – it means a lot to us that those processes are followed.

I don’t know that you’re ever going to persuade New Zealanders that they’re not going to own their own homes and I’m not going to try.

In terms of having views and being prepared to express them, yes, I think New Zealand’s had a leadership role in a lot of things.

Fortunately New Zealand doesn’t have land borders so we are able to be somewhat more rigorous on who gets in and out of our country than perhaps some people.

I think it’s inevitable that New Zealand will become a republic and that would reflect the reality that New Zealand is a totally sovereign-independent 21st century nation 12,000 miles from the United Kingdom.

If you neglect those who are currently poor and stable, you may create more poor and unstable people. There has been a tremendous concentration of donor interest in countries that are seen as particularly fragile – but it becomes harder to mobilise money for sub-Saharan, plain poor countries.

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.

We need a lot of thinking and ideas. We need all the innovators, particularly with the new sustainable technologies – how do we get them to affordability so that people can generate clean energy?

Of course as a small country you’re not necessarily in the strongest negotiating position unless you’re negotiating with other small countries.