Progress of FCV “slave ships” Bill is good news – but much work remains to be done.

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says the progress of the “slave ships” Bill in the New Zealand Par­lia­ment is good news – but much work remains to be done.

The Fish­eries (For­eign Char­ter Ves­sels and Oth­er Mat­ters) Amend­ment Bill com­plet­ed its sec­ond read­ing on a voice vote in the New Zealand Par­lia­ment on Tues­day 15 April 2014 with sup­port from all sides of the house.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says it was good that For­eign Char­ter Ves­sels (FCVs) oper­at­ing with­in New Zealand’s Exclu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zone (EEZ) would have to be reflagged under new laws but the timescale was still too long.

He says the removal of pro­posed exemp­tions from the Bill was the right deci­sion, but the focus now had to go on jobs for New Zealand work­ers in the indus­try.

A shock­ing num­ber of deaths, injuries, abuse and exploita­tion of for­eign crews have occurred on FCV’s in New Zealand waters.

Mr Fleet­wood says the prob­lem was picked up by glob­al media, then start­ed caus­ing con­cern amongst over­seas con­sumers and com­pa­nies, and even fea­tured in US State Depart­ment reports on mod­ern day slav­ery.

“It was only when the truth start­ed com­ing out and began dam­ag­ing the so-called clean, green image of New Zealand in our export mar­kets, that the wheels began to turn.”

“This is a sad reflec­tion of a prof­it-dri­ven coun­try where basic human rights and work­er pro­tec­tions can no longer be tak­en for grant­ed.”

Mr Fleet­wood says that an impor­tant issue that had not yet been addressed was a career path to secure jobs for New Zealand work­ers in their own nation­al indus­try.

He says there is a press­ing need to cre­ate employ­ment in high qual­i­ty val­ue added pro­cess­ing, on the water and on land, giv­en the seri­ous unem­ploy­ment lev­els amongst young New Zealand work­ers, espe­cial­ly young Maori work­ers who were miss­ing out on ben­e­fit­ing from iwi prof­its from involve­ment in the indus­try.

He says New Zealand could learn from over­seas exam­ples such as Ice­land.

The Mar­itime Union would con­tin­ue to offer sup­port for­eign crews includ­ing fish­ing work­ers who are being exploit­ed and vic­timised, says Mr Fleet­wood.