November 25, 2005

The Mari­time Uni­on says the shipjump­ing of eight Indone­sians in Wel­ling­ton from the fish­ing ves­sel ‘San Lib­er­atore’ was entirely pre­dict­able as the ship had a his­tory of prob­lems.

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says the Uni­on had to inter­vene on two occa­sions this year when over­seas crew mem­bers on the ‘San Lib­er­atore’ were being made to do water­front work nor­mally done by New Zea­l­and work­ers.

“There have been Gov­ern­ment reports say­ing there is abuse going on aboard these fish­ing ves­sels in New Zea­l­and waters – why don’t we put the spot­light on the com­pan­ies oper­at­ing these ves­sels, rather than the work­ers?”