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.”