Cash bounty for missing crew members could attract criminals

The Mari­time Uni­on says cash boun­ties being offered for miss­ing over­seas fish­ing crew mem­bers is extremely dan­ger­ous and is of dubi­ous leg­al­ity.

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Tre­vor Han­son says he is con­cerned about a new trend that has private oper­at­ors front­ing up big money to track down miss­ing crew mem­bers.

An advert­ise­ment placed in the Otago Daily Times today offers an $1000 bounty for inform­a­tion about miss­ing crew mem­ber Kismo Pakistan who left his ves­sel the FV Oyang 70 in Duned­in on 5 June 2007.

The con­tact lis­ted in the advert­ise­ment was Fish­er­ies Con­sultancy Lim­ited of Lyt­telton and the advert­ise­ment was author­ized by South­ern Storm Fish­ing (2007) Lim­ited of Christ­ch­urch.

Mr Han­son says hav­ing a cash bounty would encour­age crim­in­al and unsa­voury ele­ments to get involved, endan­ger­ing both the miss­ing fish­er­man and any­one who hap­pens to look like him.

“The poten­tial for stan­dover tac­tics, exploit­a­tion and abuse is sub­stan­tial.”

He says that if indi­vidu­als have left ships and are in breach of their work visa, then it was the job of Gov­ern­ment author­it­ies to loc­ate the miss­ing indi­vidu­als.

“It is not the job of fish­ing com­pan­ies to act as the Sher­iff, Judge, Jury and Exe­cu­tion­er – we are not in the Wild West.”

He says shipjump­ing crew are not bad people.

“There are many reas­ons that for­eign fish­er­men jump ship, in some cases it is because they want a bet­ter life, they may be break­ing the law but they must be treated as human beings and we should remem­ber that many people who came to New Zea­l­and were doing exactly the same thing.”

He says the sad thing is the amount of money that is being offered for a reward would seem like a for­tune for young, impov­er­ished fish­ing crews from the Third World.

Mr Han­son says that there is a widely acknow­ledged inter­na­tion­al prob­lem with fish­ing crews being mis­treated and under­paid.

“We don’t want any of these prac­tices to become estab­lished in New Zea­l­and waters, and we know that in the past there have been a num­ber of incid­ents that have led to Gov­ern­ment action.”

“We thought that moves by the Gov­ern­ment to tight­en up on bad prac­tices in the industry last year would have pulled a few horns in, but it seems that cer­tain play­ers want to con­tin­ue to push the bound­ar­ies.”

Mr Han­son says the Mari­time Uni­on says that fish­ing com­pan­ies in New Zea­l­and waters should be made to employ New Zeal­anders on decent wages.

He says that if any over­seas crews are used they should be on the same terms and con­di­tions as New Zea­l­and work­ers.