Inquiry Confirms Maritime Union Warnings on Manahau

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and (MUNZ) says the find­ings from an offi­cial inquiry on the Man­a­hau barge ground­ing obtained by media show the ves­sel was unsuit­able for con­di­tions and have absolved crew that were blamed for the ground­ing.

A Mari­time New Zea­l­and invest­ig­a­tion sum­mary obtained by media con­firms MUNZ’s claims from the out­set of the 2024 incid­ent at West­port.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Carl Find­lay says the uni­on and its mem­bers are not sur­prised by the find­ings.

“MUNZ stated from day one that the Man­a­hau was an inap­pro­pri­ate, under­powered ves­sel for the rugged West Coast,” says Mr. Find­lay.

He says WMS pre­vi­ously attemp­ted to “throw the crew under the bus,” by releas­ing its own in-house report to blame the crew for the ground­ing.

How­ever, accord­ing to doc­u­ments obtained by the media, it has been found WMS failed to doc­u­ment and imple­ment a safe sys­tem of work for anchor­ing, par­tic­u­larly in adverse con­di­tions.

WMS also failed to fol­low safe oper­a­tion­al pro­ced­ures when adverse weath­er con­di­tions pre­ven­ted safe access to West­port, and it failed to con­sult, co-oper­ate with, and co-ordin­ate safe oper­at­ing pro­ced­ures with Star­High Asia Pacific PTE Ltd, the com­pany it con­trac­ted to man­age the vessel’s safety man­age­ment sys­tem.

WMS claim to be con­cerned for ‘its people’ had no cred­ib­il­ity at this point, says Mr. Find­lay.

“They have tried to weasel their way out of respons­ib­il­ity all the way.”

He says it is “bizarre” WMS had appar­ently accep­ted the form­al warn­ing from Mari­time NZ but was con­tinu­ing to refer to its own in-house report which con­tra­dicts the offi­cial find­ings.

“There are only two reports that count – the report from Mari­time New Zea­l­and and the forth­com­ing report from the Trans­port Acci­dent Invest­ig­a­tion Com­mis­sion (TAIC). These are inde­pend­ent and cred­ible author­it­ies.”

The Man­a­hau was a for­eign-flagged ves­sel, oper­ated by a for­eign crew who were denied access to uni­on sup­port in the imme­di­ate after­math of the ground­ing, and who were repat­ri­ated as soon as pos­sible by their employ­ers.

Mr Find­lay says at a time of high unem­ploy­ment for skilled New Zea­l­and work­ers, WMS were seek­ing to use for­eign crews and for­eign-flagged ves­sels that are not fit for pur­pose.

“A qual­i­fied New Zea­l­and crew would have under­stood the treach­er­ous con­di­tions of the West Coast.”

MUNZ says the required out­come is for Mari­time NZ to insist the com­pany finds a suit­able, safe new ves­sel for any future West Coast oper­a­tions, oper­at­ing under a New Zea­l­and flag.

That ves­sel must be crewed by a New Zea­l­and crew.

Mr Find­lay says MUNZ would be happy to assist WMS to find a qual­i­fied New Zea­l­and crew that were paid at New Zea­l­and mar­ket rates once they source an appro­pri­ate new ves­sel.

“We are only a phone call away.”