Fishing charges for Oyang 75 officers point to industry wide failings

The Mari­time Uni­on says it will raise the situ­ation of the Oyang 75 fish­ery pro­sec­u­tions when it appears before a hear­ing tomor­row (Monday 17 Octo­ber) for the Gov­ern­ment Inquiry into For­eign Charter Ves­sels in the New Zea­l­and fish­ing industry.

Invest­ig­a­tions by the Min­istry of Fish­er­ies have led to 26 charges being laid against five Korean officers includ­ing the cap­tain of the Oyang 75.

The Min­istry of Fish­er­ies repor­ted on 13 Octo­ber that the com­mer­cial fish­ing ves­sel Oyang 75 had sailed from Port Lyt­telton.

The first court date for the officers is in the Christ­ch­urch Dis­trict Court on 17 Novem­ber 2011.

Depend­ing on the out­come, the Oyang 75 may become for­feit to the New Zea­l­and Gov­ern­ment, accord­ing to the Min­istry, and a bond had been placed on the ves­sel.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood says the uni­on is press­ing for a com­plete over­haul of fish­er­ies reg­u­la­tions and the remov­al of for­eign charter ves­sels from the New Zea­l­and fish­ing industry.

“We have come to expect this type of thing from so many of these for­eign chartered ves­sels oper­at­ing in joint ven­tures. The pat­tern of work­er exploit­a­tion and envir­on­ment­al plun­der are two faces of the same coin.”

But Mr Fleet­wood says the blame is get­ting placed on crews, while the cor­por­ate exec­ut­ives at the top of the “food chain” were walk­ing away with profits from rot­ten and uneth­ic­al prac­tices.

“Once again we see crews tak­ing the rap and get­ting charged, but everything they do will be a res­ult of get­ting immense pres­sure on from the char­ter­ers and the ship own­ers who demand profit at all cost.”

“The sys­tem is set up so the big oper­at­ors keep their dis­tance from the dirty end of things.”

Mr Fleet­wood says com­pared to oth­er mari­time dis­asters recently, this may seem small time, but it showed how lax stand­ards and the dereg­u­lated open coast policy pro­moted by Gov­ern­ment and busi­ness were the norm in the mari­time industry.

“This is where the prob­lems can be tracked back to, right to the top of New Zeal­and’s polit­ic­al and busi­ness estab­lish­ment.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the his­tory of the Oyang 75 and its doomed pre­de­cessor the Oyang 70 made amaz­ing read­ing and it was a trav­esty any ves­sels from this com­pany were still allowed on the New Zea­l­and coast.

The Wel­ling­ton hear­ings for the Inquiry will be held in the Grand Chan­cel­lor Meet­ing Room, Hotel Grand Chan­cel­lor James Cook, 147 The Ter­race, Wel­ling­ton from 10 am to 4 pm on Monday, 17 Octo­ber.

The Mari­time Uni­on will be mak­ing its present­a­tion at 1.15pm.

Back­ground to the Oyang 75

The com­pany respons­ible for char­ter­ing Oyang 75, South­ern Storm Fish­ing, were the char­ter­ers of the ves­sel Oyang 70 that sank in 2010 off New Zea­l­and with the deaths of six crew.

In May 2011, South­ern Storm Fish­ing held a “media event” in Duned­in where tele­vi­sion journ­al­ists from both main net­works were invited on board to inspect their new replace­ment ves­sel, the Oyang 75.

But less than two months later, the crew of the new flag­ship of their fleet have aban­doned the Oyang 75 en masse in Lyt­telton, claim­ing phys­ic­al and verbal abuse and under­pay­ment.

A pat­tern of activ­it­ies has been iden­ti­fied by the Mari­time Uni­on going back sev­er­al years, in rela­tion to the oper­a­tions of South­ern Storm Fish­ing and their ves­sels and crews.

ShinJi and Mr Hyun Choi

Depart­ment of Labour was repor­ted earli­er this year as invest­ig­at­ing claims of abuse and under­pay­ment of crew on ShinJi.

Crew mem­bers told media they left the ves­sel in Auck­land due to under­pay­ment and mis­treat­ment.

The Shin Ji is chartered by Christ­ch­urch-based Tu Ere Fish­ing, which went into vol­un­tary admin­is­tra­tion earli­er in 2011.

A dir­ect­or of the com­pany was Hyun Choi, also a dir­ect­or of South­ern Storm Fish­ing.

In 2009 the ITF and Mari­time Uni­on invest­ig­ated the Shin Ji after 12 Indone­sian crew left the ves­sel.

The reas­ons they gave for leav­ing the ves­sel were non pay­ment of wages, prob­lems with har­ass­ment from officers, and sub­stand­ard liv­ing and work­ing con­di­tions.

ITF inspect­or Gra­hame MacLar­en repor­ted a num­ber of prob­lems – “the ves­sel was in need of a good clean and there were large areas of rust on the deck in the gal­ley, no bed lin­en, no hot water with the crew expec­ted to shower in cold sea water. We also poin­ted out that the life rafts were almost inac­cess­ible due to fish­ing gear being stowed all around them.”

NZ$52,776 in back pay was secured for the crew by the ITF and the crew were repat­ri­ated back to Indone­sia des­pite ini­tial res­ist­ance from the char­ter­ers.

South­ern Storm media pro­mo­tion

South­ern Storm rep­res­en­ted by pub­li­cist Glenn Inwood of Omeka Com­mu­nic­a­tions in Oyang 75 media pro­mo­tion in May 2011.

Inwood’s pre­vi­ous cli­ents have included Japan­ese whal­ing industry and tobacco com­pan­ies.

The $1000 “Bounty”

An advert­ise­ment placed in the Otago Daily Times in 2007 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.

Breach of RMA

In 2009 South­ern Storm was found guilty of breach­ing the Resource Man­age­ment Act fol­low­ing an oil spill from the Oyang 70 in Port Nel­son.

They con­tested that they were not the respons­ible party, but the judge found oth­er­wise.

Sink­ing of Oyang 70

South­ern Storm chartered ves­sel Oyang 70 sinks on 18 August 2010, 400 naut­ic­al miles off Otago coast. Six crew drowned.

Sur­viv­ing crew kept away from media when taken ashore. The crew were then bussed to a secret loc­a­tion, with police clos­ing the Lyt­telton tun­nel so a media con­tin­gent could not fol­low the sur­viv­ors’ bus through to Christ­ch­urch.

A former police officer involved in the case stated that crew were “treated appallingly” (Sunday Star Times, 12 April 2011).

“All the sur­viv­ors came with the same story, and they all said they were haul­ing a bag of fish,” says Greg Lyall, cap­tain of the Amaltal Atlantis, who res­cued the sur­viv­ors.

“The ves­sel lent over to one side – the fact­ory filled up with water and the engine room filled up with water. There were no alarms, no light­ing, noth­ing, and with­in 10 minutes the boat was gone and most of them had to swim to the life rafts.”