Emily Harrison | This World Ocean Day consider where your seafood actually comes from

Since then, regular pop-ups and the ever-changing restaurant scene have kept the unique fine dining experience alive.

It may be a you-only-need-to-do-it-once gimmick, but for the most part it's an entertaining and informative one.

World Ocean Day is a time to focus on the health of our ocean but for seafood lovers in Australia however, it's near impossible to remove the blindfold to know exactly what you are eating, how it was caught and whether it's sustainable.

We are left little choice when purchasing something described broadly as "catch of the day" or "white fish" but I bet you wouldn't order something described as simply as "red meat".

One of the reasons we don't have more specific labelling is because at least 65 per cent of the seafood we consume is imported and our border rules require little to no information for monitoring, tracing and regulating what is brought in from overseas fisheries.

Sitting down to a five-star meal, with a glass of wine, and exploring complex flavours with our eyes closed is one thing, but the realisation that we cannot make an informed choice to stop illegal and undesirable seafood from reaching our domestic market is another.

Many are shocked to learn that even retailers and restaurants themselves cannot be sure that imported seafood meets the kinds of minimum standards that local products must.

That's because we have no rules for imported seafood - not even the ability to track the movement of a product, from the point of origin to the point of consumption.

In the case of seafood, traceability means knowing where, when, and how the fish was caught, who caught it, how it was processed and transported. This information is critical for ensuring that seafood is safe, legally caught, and sustainably and ethically sourced.

For much of the seafood imported to Australia, we have no choice but to trust the opaque supply chain or decide not to eat a product. To expect consumers to wear a blindfold of this kind is simply not good enough.

Many imported products are good quality and meet local seafood standards, but there are some grave problems with global fisheries.

The latest estimates suggest the total value of current illegal and unreported fishing losses worldwide are between $10 billion and $23.5 billion annually, representing between 11 and 26 million tonnes.

In reality, that means contributing to the destruction of marine environments, the death of threatened species and declining fish stocks. There are also known problems with modern slavery and terrible working conditions in some overseas fisheries.

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In order to create a level playing field for Australian industry, to protect consumers, workers and our oceans, it's important that Australia doesn't allow food into the country that doesn't meet basic traceability standards.

Thankfully, the Australian government has just announced that it will investigate the matter. A consultation on what a seafood import framework could look like has just begun. It can't come soon enough; other markets including the US, Japan and the European Union have already taken action. We must act now to stop Australia from becoming a dumping ground for more dodgy seafood.

The Fair Catch Alliance is a coalition of industry, conservation and human rights organisations, established by Minderoo Foundation, that want a better system for seafood imports. That's because, without action from the federal government at the border, the supply chain can never be transparent, and we'll never escape the blind restaurant trick.

Everyone deserves to know exactly what they are buying.