It's my pleasure to welcome you tonight. There's an old German proverb that says a fish should swim three times, once in water, once in sauce and once in wine ... and I hope tonight's dinner proves it.

Many of you have come a long way for this conference and though we come from many different countries and cultures, we're here because we share a connection in our determination to protect and nurture species that migrate between all our fisheries. Species like tuna, on which the livelihoods of our fishing businesses depend.

We only need to look to the southeast Atlantic, the Southeast Pacific, the Northeast Atlantic and high seas tuna fishing grounds in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

In those areas, half to two thirds of tuna stocks are overexploited, depleted, or recovering. The capture potential of the world’s oceans has reached its ceiling. The oceans need more cautious and effective fisheries management, and we are connected by our responsibility to play our part in our corner of the globe.

In the central and western Pacific we are in charge of the world’s last big tuna resource. This resource is the economic engine driving many Pacific Island economies.

I want to tell you the story of how we have gone about protecting the resource here in New Zealand in a way that has enhanced fishing stocks and also enhanced fishing businesses.

Last week I went to a dinner like this one celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the introduction of individual transferable quotas. In the mid-eighties in New Zealand our fishing stocks were being hammered.

Species like snapper were near collapse on our east coast. Snapper is an iconic New Zealand fish; the fish nearly everyone wants to catch when they go down to the water with a rod, the fish we often like to order when we buy something for the dinner plate.

At the time, our deep-water fisheries were fished entirely by distant nations.
The fishing business consisted of racing to new grounds and taking as much as possible as quickly as possible - usually until there were no fish left to catch.

When transferable quotas were introduced, things changed. The government set a limit on the total allowable catch. Fishing boats could catch their quota or sell it to someone else who could catch it more efficiently.

When stocks are under stress, quota gets reduced and the price rises, reducing demand, switching fishing to more abundant species and introducing an incentive to add value and process the fish here.
The system has both supported the long-term sustainability of our fishing resource and given the industry more certainty to attract investment.

When fish stocks are under stress, investment in catching them will invariably be risky. So by making fishing stocks sustainable we have helped provide the certainty that investors in the fishing industry seek.

We've also given ourselves a competitive edge that we are beginning to see as a real market advantage. Consumers are demanding more environmental responsibility in the way we use our natural resources. Regulators in our markets are increasingly interested in setting minimum environmental standards.

For example, last month, Ireland’s Minister for Fisheries expressed support for initiatives to ensure that fish products sold in Europe carry eco-friendly labelling. I say - Bring It On. We are able to say our fishing resource is managed as well as any in the world.

New Zealanders are reaping more of the benefits of our fishing resource.
Still, today, over half our deep-sea fish catch being is being taken by vessels under joint venture or charter arrangements with distant nations.

And it saddens me that much of this fish leaves our waters in a low-processed state – either frozen whole or headed and gutted fish. I believe we can do better; and our target is to double the value that we earn from our fishing exports, without increasing the volume of fish we take from the sea.

In the wider context of Pacific tunas and other highly migratory species, we may be able to find similar opportunities that will add value in ways that appeal to our markets.

There is global concern that we should not be catching fish faster than they can replace themselves. There is concern also that our fishing activities may be degrading the very environment that supports these fish stocks. These are challenges for us all.

And they are not something that can be sorted by individual action alone. We need to work together in partnership if we are to manage the world’s fisheries effectively both within our own economic zones and on the high seas.

Better fisheries management requires strong rules and governance. There are some encouraging signs of global leadership. We saw calls for better performance by regional fisheries management organisations at the Fisheries and Agriculture Organisation talks in Rome earlier this year, and at the joint meeting of tuna organisations in Kobe.

Members highlighted the importance of performance reviews for regional fisheries management organisations. Many have started to review their performance.

Another big challenge for us all is ensuring that fish is taken legally and reported properly. One step we can take is to make sure only legal and reported fish is traded through the world. So we need to get rid of ports-of-refuge for illegal, unreported and unregulated vessels. We need disincentives to fish illegally.

A binding agreement for port state measures will help to make ports unattractive for IUU vessels to visit. Work has begun at the Food and Agriculture Organisation on a global register of fishing vessels. It would incorporate information on beneficial ownership, in line with the work carried out by the High Seas Task Force.

All these initiatives will benefit our Pacific fisheries. But what we will benefit from most is our ability to work together for our mutual benefit. We have a lot of work to do to ensure we capture more of the value from our resource and to ensure we protect it for the future.

For all the work we do in trying to develop our fishing businesses, I am always conscious of the story about a management consultant who came to New Zealand on holiday.
He went down to one of our beautiful beaches to lie in the sun and he saw a fisherman also lying in the sun not far away, beside his small boat dragged up on the beach.
"Why aren't you out fishing?" the consultant asked. The fisherman told him, "I've caught enough fish for today."
"But if you went out and caught more you would make more money and then you might be able to buy a second boat," the consultant told him. “Well why would I want to do that?" the fisherman asked.
"Well then you would earn more, and you might be able to buy more boats and eventually you would have a whole fleet! Then you could do a debt equity swap, and an Initial Public Offering of shares, and you would be rich!"
And the fisherman asks him again, "Why would I want to do that?"
And the consultant said, "Well then you could have enough money to retire, and you could take fabulous holidays to places like this and come and relax on the beach!"
Exactly," said the fisherman. "And what do you think I'm doing?"