Good morning, or good day, or good evening to you all, whether you are joining us from Adelaide, or Geneva, Fiji, or Tonga – or anywhere else in the world. Welcome.
Today, we are meeting across many lands, with many cultures, histories, and stories.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land which I am on today – the Gadigal people, and pay my respects to their elders, past and present.
The Gadigal people have lived in what is now the Sydney area for thousands of years, hunting, fishing, and living, around the harbour, for the many years before, and in the years after, European settlement.
Fish, and fishing rites, were a cornerstone of Gadigal life.
Gadigal fisherwomen used the bark of kurrajong trees to create the thread for handlines, topped these with fishhooks made from abalone or turban shells, and dropped lines over the sides of nowies scattered across the bays and out through the Heads.
Their singing carried across the water, and down to the depths below, luring whiting, dory, or snapper.
Across this state, and this country, our First Nations people created managed complex fisheries systems, constructing stone weirs to trap fish as the tide fell in shallow lagoons, or using basket fish traps and nets to catch seafood during king tides.
But for all, the rules were sacred: never take more than you need.
And if you allow fish to breed, and grow, and if you take them at the right time, their populations can sustain and sustain a community.
These rules are just as sacred today.
And it is with respect to this long history, and with an eye to its future, we commit to the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement.
We have more work to do.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over one-third of global fish stocks are currently overfished.
And it is calculated that a majority of the USD 10.7 billion governments spend each year to support their fishing industries does more to encourage overfishing and illegal fishing than protect its future.
Affecting the food security, and livelihoods, of 600 million people around the world with empty nets, closing factories, and countries and communities, especially in the Pacific, seeing thousands of years of tradition and future opportunity disappear.
This Agreement is a significant, and historical contribution to the sustainability of our oceans and we were proud to work with our Pacific colleagues to achieve this in September 2025.
With the Agreement, for the first time, we have a global set of rules designed to curb the subsidies that support illegal fishing and exploitation of overfished stocks, and to support developing countries to do so through the Fish Fund.
It’s the culmination of more than 20 years of negotiations.
It is the first multilateral trade treaty with an explicit environmental objective.
And it is only the second multilateral trade treaty to be concluded since the WTO was established in 1995.
And at a time when some question, or challenge, the international rules-based order, or the value of the WTO, or multilateralism entirely, it shows we have the power to come together to deliver a meaningful outcome when it matters.
We are proud to support the implementation of the Agreement including as one of the largest donors to the Fish Fund.
Our AUD 2 million contribution is helping countries like Tonga to assess what they need to do to address fisheries subsidies in their country.
And we will continue to work with Pacific Island countries in the ongoing ‘second wave’ negotiations to curb subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and overfishing.
Because we know sustainable fishing is critical to the health of our oceans and the future economic development of our region.
Where we take only what we need, to protect our oceans and marine life: as our First Nations people have done for millennia.
Thank you.