Day: 25 November 2005

Time for lid to be lifted on fishing industry disgrace

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?”