Kia ora, Talofa, warm Pacific greetings to you all.

We’re delighted tonight to be able to welcome delegates from around our Pacific region to Auckland for the Pacific Forum Regional Security Committee meeting. We also warmly welcome Forum Secretary-General Greg Urwin and his team from the Secretariat in Suva.

This is a rare opportunity to discuss important issues of Pacific security.

Security is one of the four goals of the Forum, along with economic growth, sustainable development and governance. In Auckland last April, just over a year ago, Pacific Forum leaders expressed their vision for our region:

Leaders believe the Pacific can, should and will be a region of peace, harmony, security and economic prosperity so that all its people can lead free and worthwhile lives. We treasure the diversity of the Pacific and seek a future in which all its cultures, traditions and religious beliefs are valued honoured and developed. We seek a Pacific region that is respected for the quality of its governance, the sustainable management of its resources, the full observance of democratic values, and for its defence and promotion of human rights. We seek partnerships with our neighbours and beyond to develop our knowledge, to improve our communications and to ensure a sustainable economic existence for all.

It is no coincidence that our Leaders’ vision starts with security. Security is the precursor to economic development and to effective government. There can be no development without peace. What we have seen in Iraq and elsewhere is evidence enough of this.

Our meeting this week highlights the two faces of security challenges in the Pacific. On the one hand, security is about addressing external risks. These might include trans national crime, drugs, fraud, identity fraud, or money laundering. These are new and pressing threats for us, which we need to tackle early. And tackle with conviction.

And the region also has to deal with the impact of the global terrorist threat. We need to be vigilant against terrorism. And we also need to ensure that we meet the new security requirements that have been imposed across a wide range of areas. Port and aviation security and banking regulation are key areas where all Forum members- big and small- have had to work to meet the new challenges. And I’d predict that these challenges will only increase in the coming years.

I’m glad to see the Committee’s focus on practical areas for law enforcement cooperation, bringing in police, immigration, and customs. The area of border management is a good place to start. We can work collectively as sovereign nations, using our regional agencies where we can, to collectively focus our resources and address the new threats.

But if external threats are one facet of security, the other, equally important side of the story is the internal side, where stresses and tensions can lead to instability and crisis. Security is also about deeper issues such as poverty and isolation, gaps between rich and poor or between different communities within one country. Internal stresses can arise from perception of distance between our leaders and the needs and aspirations of our young people.

Looking at internal security means tackling unsustainable resource use and issues of land tenure and registration. It means addressing corruption. It means looking at how we put in practice our commitment to human rights and to the dignity of communities and custom.

It’s not always easy to find practical areas for regional cooperation on these issues, as many are very local in nature. But there is too much at stake for us not to try.

And regionally, we have shown that we are ready to assist when a crisis hits - as the Biketawa Declaration says “on the basis that all members of the Forum are part of the Pacific Islands extended family”. Given our ancestral links and kingship between Micronesia, Melanisia and Polynesia and indeed Asia, it could be said that Pacific forum countries are not only a "Family of Nations" but a Nations of Family. We need to promote this spirit of family and of unity.

We showed this spirit in Bougainville, where recently completed elections marked ten years of regional support for peace.

The region helped Solomon Islands, one of our extended family members - and RAMSI has made a huge impact in restoring peace. But the region needs to stay the course, working alongside Solomon Islanders to consolidate and build peace, and help translate this into economic and development gains.

And with Leaders set to adopt the Pacific Plan at this year’s Forum in PNG, the security community will have a new framework for collective regional action, within which to work – a framework to which all the Leaders of the region will be committed to.

Forum leaders will be looking to their meeting in October in Papua New Guinea to underline our commitment to working together, as a family, for security in our region.

I know that everyone in this room is committed to this goal.

Have a great meeting over the next few days. Have a great evening.

Ia manuia le tatou fa'amoemoe i le alofa o le Atua. Manuia le tatou po – Soifua.

Kia ora tatou – Tena koutou , tena koutou, tena koutou katoa

Waiata