New Zealand Executive Government Speech Archive

Your Excellency President Mandela, Honourable Ministers, distinguished guests,
ladies and gentlemen.

My first visit to South Africa was in May 1994 for the magnificent and
emotional inauguration of the President.

A huge gathering of world leaders came to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela and
those who stood with him during the long walk to freedom.

As President Mandela said on that day, "Out of the experience of an
extraordinary human disaster that has lasted too long must be born a society of
which all humanity will be proud."

The first steps have been taken down that demanding road.

I am pleased to be able to spend a few days with you, to offer encouragement
from the people of New Zealand.

Long journeys can be lonely.

It was a personal privilege, as Chair of CHOGM, to welcome South Africa back
into the Commonwealth at the Auckland meeting after an absence of thirty-three
years.

It was an even greater pleasure Mr President to be able to show you something
of our country following the Commonwealth meeting.

Everywhere you went New Zealanders were touched by the dignity of your
leadership and the personal example of forgiveness and grace which you
displayed.

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The South African link has played a pivotal role in our emergence and growth as
a nation.

At the time of British Colonial Rule, for example, Sir George Grey was
successively Governor of New Zealand and the Cape Colony, before returning to
New Zealand again.

Often, much to Londons consternation, Grey gave weight and expression to the
views of New Zealands indigenous people and the founding document of our
nation, the Treaty of Waitangi.

New Zealands participation in the South African war of 1899-1902 established
traditions and precedents of international involvement that were distinctly New
Zealand in origin and flavour.

Indeed, some historians consider that nationalism generated in New Zealand by
our contribution to the South African war was a decisive factor that stopped us
federating with Australia in 1901.

On the diplomatic front, it was - once again - the question of South Africa
that triggered a further shift in New Zealand's growth as a nation.

In 1958 New Zealand supported a Resolution in the United Nations urging the
then Government in Pretoria to react positively to international concerns over
apartheid.

In doing so we shifted irrevocably from a long-standing position that racial
policies were an internal affair.

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Over many years as a result of our links with South Africa, New Zealanders
engaged in an intensifying domestic debate over the issue of politics and sport.

The debate was long and difficult and reached its zenith over, and during, the
1981 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand.

It reached into - and often divided - families, friends and communities
throughout New Zealand, perhaps more than anything else in our recent history.

The tour was a mistake.

In the final analysis, New Zealanders came to a more mature appreciation that
we could not isolate ourselves - nor pursue our domestic preoccupations - as if
we were divorced from a broader responsibility to promote racial equality and
good governance elsewhere.

Fourteen years on, your visit to New Zealand last year helped in healing the
protests and pain engendered by the 1981 Springbok tour of New Zealand.

Now I express the hope that non-racial rugby will help to bridge the divisions
in South Africa created by apartheid.

I wish your team well in the future but not too much success over the next four
weeks while the All Blacks are here.

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While New Zealand and South Africa are different from each other we both face a
continuing task of reconciling the legacy of our past with the goal of building
a genuinely multicultural society.

The challenge is to do so in a spirit of honesty about the past, realism in the
present and a positive sense of direction and hope for the future.

It is a major challenge for both of us.

And from time to time we may be able to help each other.

In that spirit I want to now concentrate on the new partnership established
since the grim years of apartheid.

Yesterday I opened the New Zealand High Commission in Pretoria, our first
diplomatic post in your country.

A new chapter in our relations has begun.

People to people links, the lifeblood of any relationship, are intensifying
rapidly in business, migration and tourism.

My visit this week is to build on these developments.

The New Zealand Trade Development Board Office in Johannesburg, and the opening
of our High Commission in Pretoria, are symbols of our commitment to developing
relations.

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So too is my Government's decision, which I announced yesterday, to waive the
visa requirement for South African visitors to New Zealand.

I hope that air services negotiations later this month will result in direct
air links between us.

Trade and investment is also growing rapidly in both directions.

On international issues we are already close partners.

Within the Commonwealth we are working with other leaders to encourage the
restoration of democracy in Nigeria.

I am delighted that as partners we are working together to achieve a Southern
Hemisphere free of nuclear weapons.

New Zealand and South Africa are as one in pursuing the elimination of nuclear
weapons.

I again urge the leaders of the five nuclear powers to not only actively
pursue a comprehensive test ban treaty, but to also and unmistakably commit
themselves to total nuclear disarmament.

Mr President, my brief visit here has given me the opportunity to see something
of the scale and beauty of South Africa.

Tomorrow I will visit East London where a New Zealand Volunteer Service Abroad
programme is in action.

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I know that a priority area for you is with the development of in-country
primary education programmes.

We have a modest assistance programme in that area and tonight I can state that
we propose to double our development co-operation programme with South Africa
this financial year.

We also welcome your interest in New Zealand's experience in areas such as
public sector reform, education, and forestry resource management.

We dont have all the answers, but we will gladly share our insights.

President Mandela, since we first met over breakfast in my hotel room in Harare
in 1991, I have watched with admiration how your leadership, first outside the
Parliament and now as President, has lead your country on a remarkable journey
from the cruel and unjust policy of apartheid to an open multi-cultural
democracy.

On the eve of the 21st century we can dare to hope that prejudice is on the
wane and that the weight of human endeavour is now moving to the side of
freedom and democracy.