Helen Clark

Helen Clark

2005 began with the international response to the catastrophe caused by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean.

Worldwide, hearts were touched by the appalling death toll, the plight of the survivors, and the sight of the devastated communities.

This was a natural disaster affecting human beings and their communities on a scale without precedent in our lifetimes.

It is the scale and extent of what happened which evoked the massive international response. I am proud that individual New Zealanders wanted to play a part in that response and fully backed the work of our many agencies which got involved in the relief effort.

Our people on the frontline, in Thailand and Indonesia especially, from the police, defence force personnel, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and NGOs, have made incredible efforts to help. And so, back home, have agencies across the board. My thanks go to them all.

New Zealand's official response to the tsunami relief and reconstruction effort amounts to this country's largest ever relief effort.

The scale of what happened justifies that, as does our country's desire to be a good neighbour.

It's easy to be a good neighbour when times are good. But it's in times of crisis when neighbours are put to the test.

New Zealand has never been found wanting when disaster has struck in the Pacific.

Now as disaster affected our regional partners in South East Asia and our Commonwealth partners in the Indian Ocean region, we have been proud to play our part, and we have the means to do so.

New Zealand at the beginning of 2005 is a confident nation, and it's moving ahead.

The gloom and doom merchants can get little traction as job and economic growth roll on.

What a disappointment for those who pin their hopes for political salvation on economic failure!

They know they can't improve on New Zealand's current performance, so they try to talk the country down.

But that's a hard task when the economic indicators are positive.

And it's a hard task when this government's policies are working and their policies based on the 1990s never did and never could.

Growth for the year to September came in at 4.6 per cent, equal to that of the United States and second only to Korea in the OECD.