Costley TimTIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki): Thank you Mr Speaker. A lot has been said about the details of the report and the importance of fisheries to the region more broadly. I'd like to focus a little more on how we respond to this and where we go from here. I'd like to start with one quote from our response to that report: Tackling illegal unregulated unreported fishing in the Southern and Pacific Oceans relies on regional compliance and enforcement capability and capacity and on skilled staff working in a safe environment." I want to just unpack that a little bit thinking about regional capability and capacity—skilled staff working in that environment. We need a broad approach. New Zealand cannot act in isolation but we do have a key role to play. It's important that we acknowledge that we cannot do this alone. We're going to have to be effective acting bilaterally acting regionally and globally with other actors to ensure that we have effective fisheries management standards and that they are both developed and effectively implemented.New Zealand has a role to play in this. I want to draw out two reasons. Firstly we live in an interconnected world—not just down to the simplicities of fish not knowing where borders are whether it's between the Solomon Islands and Micronesia. We live in an interconnected world and what happens in New Zealand impacts what happens in the Pacific. What happens in the Pacific certainly impacts New Zealand.Leading on to the second reason that it's important we take a role: if we're not taking a leading role particularly in the Pacific other actors will. We need to be careful about who we're leaving room to manoeuvre. New Zealand has always been a leading Pacific nation and always should be. That's why it's really important that we play our part in the fisheries space.How are we going to do that? Well technology clearly is one aspect that comes out of this. We do need to leverage every technical advantage that we can find. We need to use the emerging tools. We need to fill those information gaps and we need to support our Pacific partners and neighbours to be able to do the same.One example is supporting—and this is certainly something New Zealand will advocate for—mandatory electronic monitoring. There is room to do that but we think about things like space technology—we think about the work that even New Zealand companies like Dawn Aerospace and Rocket Lab are doing to enhance that. As a small country we will never have the platforms and the people to cover such a vast exclusive economic zone—it's a vast fisheries area—not just for New Zealand but for our Pacific neighbours. So it's going to be important that we leverage tools like space like the satellites to ensure that we can cover that and monitor fishing on such a large scale.But I note in recommendation three talking about how emerging technology can improve the collection and verification of data that it also will always require human interface at some point. As the response says "Technological tools still require human processes." We can never get away from people being involved in that. That's why I'm so grateful to those that work in Fisheries that work in Customs that work in our Defence Force that are actually out there. I think of someone like Jaymie from Levin who I met a few years ago when she was finishing high school who wanted to know a little bit about the Air Force. She's now working as qualified crew in the back of our P-8 aircraft having qualified originally on the P-3 Orion. She's one of the ones out there that are giving some of the best years of her life and her service to be out there amongst those colloquially known as the other fish heads that are patrolling our territorial waters and those of our Pacific neighbours and a great job they do too. And I should just acknowledge the team from No. 5 Squadron at Ōhākea.The extent of our participation in these operations however is below historical norms and desirable levels at the moment and one of the biggest challenges has been capacity and certainly the attrition within our Defence Force has been a challenge. It'll be great to see the Aotearoa sailing down to Antarctica this summer and able to head into the Southern Ocean but we have struggled to put ships near or in sea ice over recent years. So the Defence capability plan that's going to be released in the coming months is going to be a critical part. I look forward to seeing what is in that.But I just want to finish in these last dying seconds by mentioning Operation Kurukuru which took place in November last year with the P-8 Poseidon—a great example of countries working together. All our Pacific Island neighbours were involved in that—25 staff from those countries working together upskilling our Pacific brothers and sisters and at the same time doing a great job to protect our fisheries. Thank you."