Department fiddles while crew members jump ship

The Mar­itime Union says the Depart­ment of Labour’s stance on two Viet­namese fish­er­men who have jumped ship in Nel­son is unac­cept­able.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Depart­ment of Labour has stat­ed in the media it will not act until for­mal­ly noti­fied by the fish­ing ves­sel char­ter­ers that crew mem­bers are miss­ing.

“In this case, the two miss­ing crew mem­bers have obvi­ous­ly jumped ship from the Sky 75, like the ten Indone­sian crew mem­bers before them, and these two fish­er­men are prob­a­bly liv­ing rough.”

Mr Han­son says the Depart­ment of Labour must stop hid­ing behind legal tech­ni­cal­i­ties and front up to a seri­ous issue.

“The Gov­ern­ment must act to ensure the safe­ty and well­be­ing of all crew mem­bers in New Zealand waters, as well as the secu­ri­ty of our ports and bor­ders.”

He says that it is obvi­ous that there are prob­lems in the indus­try with the mis­treat­ment of for­eign crews.

“The Depart­ment of Labour should be tak­ing a no-non­sense approach to ensure com­pli­ance with New Zealand laws and reg­u­la­tions in the fish­ing indus­try.”

Mr Han­son says it appears lit­tle action has been tak­en on a damn­ing Depart­ment of Labour report into the mis­treat­ment of for­eign fish­ing crews that was made pub­lic ear­li­er this year.

ENDS

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion con­tact:

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son on (04) 801 7614 or 0274 453 532