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Year: 2009

Inquiry into fishing industry needed

The Mar­itime Union says infor­ma­tion revealed in a New Zealand doc­u­men­tary on the fish­ing indus­try must be fol­lowed up by a Gov­ern­ment inquiry.

The doc­u­men­tary The Great New Zealand Fish­ing Scan­dal by inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Guy Hen­der­son screened on Sky last night and today, and cov­ered devel­op­ments in the indus­try since the 1990s.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the doc­u­men­tary was accu­rate and he believes there is much more to be uncov­ered.

Maritime Union helps Burmese crew on Annapurna

The Mar­itime Union says it is help­ing the Burmese crew from the seized ves­sel Anna­pur­na in the Ports of Auck­land.

The Liber­ian-flagged Anna­pur­na was seized yes­ter­day by cred­i­tors after it berthed in Auck­land, fol­low­ing the bank­rupt­cy of its own­ers East­wind.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Sea­far­ers Branch Sec­re­tary Gar­ry Parsloe, who rep­re­sents the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion, says the pri­ma­ry con­cern of the Union is that crew mem­bers are paid their wages.

Minister of Social Development has attacked freedom of speech

UPDATED: see TV inter­view here

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says that actions of Social Devel­op­ment Min­is­ter Paula Ben­nett and her office in releas­ing pri­vate infor­ma­tion of New Zealand cit­i­zens is an attack of free­dom of speech.

Mar­itime Union spokesper­son Vic­tor Bil­lot says the delib­er­ate release of the incomes of two solo moth­ers to the media was a sin­is­ter attempt to bul­ly peo­ple into sub­mis­sion.

The two women had crit­i­cized cuts to train­ing allowances that would make it more dif­fi­cult for them to study and improve their qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

“The actions of the Min­is­ter and her office are not about pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion for rea­soned debate, it is clear­ly a tac­tic to fright­en and bul­ly any­one who stands up and has an opin­ion.”

Truck plan means more blood on roads

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has slammed Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­als to allow larg­er and heav­ier trucks on New Zealand roads as irre­spon­si­ble and short-sight­ed.

The Union says New Zealand needs to pro­mote low-impact, envi­ron­men­tal­ly effi­cient modes such as coastal ship­ping and rail to han­dle the growth in freight, not big­ger trucks.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says pro­posed changes to land trans­port rules would see larg­er, heav­ier trucks dom­i­nat­ing New Zealand roads for years to come.

“Roads will become more dan­ger­ous and more crowd­ed lead­ing to more and worse acci­dents — more blood on the road.”