Maritime Union concerned with reduction in ship inspections

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is con­cerned about the reduc­tion in mon­i­tor­ing of inter­na­tion­al ship­ping by Mar­itime New Zealand, the Gov­ern­ment agency respon­si­ble for ensur­ing a “safe, secure and clean” mar­itime envi­ron­ment.

Less than half of “Pri­or­i­ty 1” ves­sels (49%) com­ing into New Zealand were inspect­ed in the 2014/2015 year, accord­ing to Mar­itime New Zealand’s annu­al report.

That is well beneath the tar­get of 70% inspec­tions for the year, and the 82% of inspec­tions achieved in the 2013/2014 year.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand nation­al sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the mon­i­tor­ing and inves­ti­ga­tion of com­pli­ance by inter­na­tion­al ship­ping was a key role of the agency.

While the roll­out of the new Mar­itime Oper­a­tor Safe­ty Sys­tem (MOSS) was an under­stand­able focus for resources, as out­lined in the report, this could not get in the way of the basic respon­si­bil­i­ties of the agency.

If there was a resourc­ing prob­lem, then that need­ed to be dealt with by appro­pri­ate resourc­ing by the Gov­ern­ment, not sim­ply set aside, he says.

Accord­ing to Mar­itime New Zealand, a greater empha­sis is being placed on “engag­ing” with inter­na­tion­al part­ners to lift the qual­i­ty of ship­ping and reduce the lev­el of risk before ships enter New Zealand waters.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Mar­itime Union did not agree with this empha­sis.

While the Union sup­port­ed work­ing with inter­na­tion­al part­ners and strength­en­ing inter­na­tion­al mar­itime agree­ments, the abil­i­ty of New Zealand to engage with “Flag of Con­ve­nience” ship­ping reg­istries such as Liberia or Pana­ma was lim­it­ed or pos­si­bly non-exis­tent in a prac­ti­cal sense.

Strin­gent inspec­tions as part of Port State Con­trol should remain the bedrock of mar­itime com­pli­ance, he says.

The dereg­u­lat­ed nature of the glob­al ship­ping indus­try meant a stick was required as well as car­rots to ensure stan­dards were main­tained.

Mr Fleet­wood says the lessons of light hand­ed reg­u­la­tion in issues of safe­ty and com­pli­ance in recent New Zealand indus­tri­al his­to­ry could be summed up by the Pike Riv­er Mine dis­as­ter and the Rena ground­ing.

In addi­tion, the prob­lems in the fish­ing indus­try over many years went back to New Zealand allow­ing indus­try to reg­u­late itself with dis­as­trous results as the low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor set the stan­dard of “glob­al worst prac­tice.”

Mr Fleet­wood says there are fre­quent and reg­u­lar issues with inter­na­tion­al ship­ping in New Zealand waters, and the Union togeth­er with the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF), often had to step in to resolve issues on behalf of for­eign crews.

The Mar­itime Union would be seek­ing assur­ances that inspec­tions of ves­sels by Mar­itime New Zealand would be a top pri­or­i­ty.