Christopher Luxon
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Well, I think it's massive.
I think you've got two small advanced economies that actually are complementary, actually get on with each other instinctively.
These are the countries that have actually pioneered a lot of our global trading architecture.
CPTPP came out of what was called the P4, which is what we started.
We're doing a whole lot of stuff on this future of investment and trade partnership with 16 other small countries, which Todd McClay will be chairing the second meeting in the middle of the year here.
So there's just, in a world where it's real chaotic and the old order's breaking down from multilateralism to big countries with more power, actually small countries coming together that are like mine, like this is really important.
Well, there's a lot of great things there.
I think you've been there, like me, many, many times.
And every time you go, it's just impressive how they keep upgrading it.
When I was 18, one of the first books I read was The Singapore Story and Third World to First World, which was the story of Lee Kuan Yew.
But I was in my hotel room the other morning.
Where did you stay?
I stayed at a place called the Shangri-La.
But as I was thinking about it, I turned the water on to clean my teeth.
And I was thinking, yeah, okay, where's the water come from?
And you remember Singapore doesn't have natural resources.
They pipe it in from Malaysia or they've got a desalination plant.
It turns saltwater into freshwater.
And of course, the whole place, you could actually pick it up and plonk it into Lake Taupo.
Exactly.