Hon DAMIEN O'CONNOR (Minister for Trade and Export Growth): Thank you. After over 20 years of advocacy from various New Zealand Ministers and officials and five days of tough negotiations, I was pleased to be able to announce a new World Trade Organization (WTO) agreement on fisheries subsidies. New Zealand has been at the forefront of calling for a binding WTO agreement to discipline harmful fisheries subsidies for over 20 years. I'm proud to be part of a Government that is continuing to advocate for sustainable fisheries practices globally. This agreement is significant. It includes prohibitions on the granting of subsidies for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; prohibition on subsidies for fishing of over-fished stocks; prohibition on subsidies for fishing in the unregulated high seas. The agreements will have real impacts for the protection of fish stocks and will also benefit New Zealand's unsubsidised fishing industry. I'd like to thank all New Zealand and World Trade Organization officials who made this progress possible—in particular, Vangelis Vitalis and his superb team; my fellow chair, ambassador Santiago Wills of Colombia; as well as all those who have worked hard on this area for over 20 years.