Ultimate responsibility for Rena disaster lies with the Government

The Mar­itime Union says that the respon­si­bil­i­ty for the Rena dis­as­ter lies with Gov­ern­ment and author­i­ties as much as with indi­vid­ual crew mem­bers.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the arrest today of the mas­ter of the Rena on seri­ous charges should not deflect atten­tion away from the greater respon­si­bil­i­ty for the dis­as­ter.

He says New Zealand Gov­ern­ment and author­i­ties have cre­at­ed a sit­u­a­tion where sub­stan­dard flag of con­ve­nience ship­ping has been encour­aged and enabled.

“1990s leg­is­la­tion from the then Nation­al Gov­ern­ment cre­at­ed the so-called ‘open coast’ pol­i­cy and this has meant that unac­cept­able prac­tices have become the norm in New Zealand waters – it’s a case of out of sight and out of mind.”

Mr Fleet­wood says a Mar­itime New Zealand “inspec­tion” of the Rena in Bluff on 28 Sep­tem­ber 2011 appar­ent­ly con­sist­ed of the inspec­tor ask­ing the Mas­ter whether pre­vi­ous prob­lems had been fixed.

“This is the same Mas­ter that the author­i­ties are now try­ing to pin the blame on a cou­ple of weeks lat­er after the dis­as­ter.”

“But at the time of the inspec­tion they obvi­ous­ly were pre­pared to take the Mas­ter at his word that every­thing was hunky dory on his ship, despite the fact it had been hauled up in Chi­na and Aus­tralia for mul­ti­ple prob­lems.”

Mr Fleet­wood says if this is the stan­dard approach of Mar­itime New Zealand to deal­ing with obvi­ous­ly prob­lem­at­ic ves­sels, the only sur­prise in the ground­ing of the Rena is that it hadn’t hap­pened ear­li­er.

He says the Union is very con­cerned about the wel­fare of crew mem­bers and want­ed access to them to pro­vide inde­pen­dent sup­port.

“Can you imag­ine the stress of these sea­far­ers, many with depen­dent fam­i­lies, who have spent near­ly a week onboard a strick­en ves­sel in mor­tal fear of their lives, and some only being tak­en off by heli­copter after a May­day call when the ship appeared to be in immi­nent cat­a­stro­phe.”

He says it is now becom­ing a reg­u­lar theme that sys­temic pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­tion fail­ures are result­ing in seri­ous harm to work­ers, the com­mu­ni­ty and the envi­ron­ment.

“It is about time that the elect­ed lead­ers start­ed cop­ping it when things go wrong rather than putting a smoth­er over it and try­ing to shift the blame.”

He says the Union was repeat­ing its call for all Mar­itime New Zealand reports on the Rena to be made pub­lic as soon as pos­si­ble.

“If the author­i­ties have man­aged to arrest the cap­tain in such a fast man­ner, they can start to make pub­lic their own process­es for full trans­paren­cy and account­abil­i­ty to the New Zealand pub­lic.”

Mr Fleet­wood says the Union has been argu­ing for stronger reg­u­la­tion of ship­ping for years in New Zealand waters, but Government’s have not want­ed to hear the mes­sage.

He says the Union has had long­stand­ing con­cerns that Mar­itime New Zealand reg­u­la­tions and inspec­tions of flag of con­ve­nience ves­sels were super­fi­cial, lim­it­ed and not strict enough.

The Union has com­piled a short list of some of the flag of con­ve­nience ship­ping issues that it has been involved in over the last few years (see end of media release).

Mr Fleet­wood says com­ment by Trans­port Min­is­ter Steven Joyce that the Mar­itime Union’s views were “polit­i­cal” were accu­rate.

“Mr Joyce is right. The issue is polit­i­cal. It is polit­i­cal because the John Key led Nation­al Gov­ern­ment have been hap­py to have flag of con­ve­nience ships run­ning on the New Zealand coast as a result of their polit­i­cal deci­sions.”

“In this case their polit­i­cal deci­sion to pro­mote and allow flag of con­ve­nience ship­ping on the New Zealand coast has had real life con­se­quences, which have proved far beyond the polit­i­cal abil­i­ty and the prac­ti­cal abil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment to deal with.”

“If we allowed trucks on New Zealand roads that were licensed in Liberia or some oth­er semi-func­tion­ing failed state, and dri­ven by unreg­u­lat­ed over­seas dri­vers, there would be an out­cry. Yet that is what we allow on the New Zealand coast and now we are pay­ing the price.”

Mr Fleet­wood says in addi­tion to its cam­paign­ing against Flag of Con­ve­nience ship­ping it had lob­bied the Gov­ern­ment last year with a plan to pro­vide a fast response ves­sel for off­shore oil spills.

The Union approached the Min­is­ter of Ener­gy and Resources, Hon Ger­ry Brown­lee, as well as the Min­is­ter of Trans­port Hon Steven Joyce and Min­is­ter of Envi­ron­ment Hon Nick Smith, in July 2010 to sup­port the intro­duc­tion of a ready response ves­sel for the mar­itime sec­tor to cope with oil spills and sim­i­lar events.

This ready response ves­sel would have been aimed at the off­shore oil and gas indus­try but could eas­i­ly have been used to quick­ly respond to oil leaks in the cur­rent Rena dis­as­ter.

The Union was told to send their infor­ma­tion into a Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment review, which it did.

Fur­ther back­ground infor­ma­tion: Some pre­vi­ous inci­dents on Flag of Con­ve­nience ves­sels in NZ waters includ­ing car­go and fish­ing ves­sels and crews

May–July 2011
In May 2011, South­ern Storm Fish­ing held a “media event” in Dunedin where jour­nal­ists were invit­ed on board to inspect their new ves­sel, the Oyang 75, that replaces the Oyang 70 that sank last year.
But less than two months lat­er, in July 2011, the crew aban­doned the Oyang 75 en masse in Lyt­tel­ton, claim­ing phys­i­cal and ver­bal abuse and under­pay­ment.

July 2011
Over­seas crew mem­bers left the Shin­Ji in Auck­land due to under­pay­ment and mis­treat­ment. DOL inves­ti­gat­ing.
In 2009 the ITF and Mar­itime Union pre­vi­ous­ly inves­ti­gat­ed the Shin Ji after 12 Indone­sian crew mem­bers left the ves­sel.

Decem­ber 2010
Five Kore­an crew are con­firmed dead and 17 miss­ing pre­sumed drowned after the No. 1 In Sung sank in the South­ern Ocean in unex­plained cir­cum­stances.

August 2010
Oyang 70 fish­ing ves­sel sinks in South­ern Ocean. Six deaths. Sur­vivors brought to Lyt­tel­ton. Claims of under­pay­ment by sur­viv­ing crew inves­ti­gat­ed (Kore­an, Fil­ipino, Indone­sian, Chi­nese).

May 2010
Two sailors, one Kore­an and one Burmese, died after suf­fo­cat­ing in the TPC Wellington’s tim­ber hold at Mars­den Point wharf near Whangarei in May 2010.

2010
10 Sri Lankan crew mem­bers aboard the MV Charelle docked at the Ports of Auck­land were not paid for 3 ½ months.
The ves­sel and its pre­vi­ous crew were held by Soma­li pirates for six months last year, only being released after a ran­som was paid on 3 Decem­ber 2009.
Crew mem­bers were being paid well below ITF rates and even less than Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion (ILO) min­i­mums.

2009
The Liber­ian-flagged Anna­pur­na was seized by cred­i­tors after it berthed in Auck­land in 2009, fol­low­ing the bank­rupt­cy of its own­ers East­wind.
The Mar­itime Union looked after 23 Burmese crew mem­bers, some of the crew mem­bers had not been paid for up to a year.

June 2009
12 Indone­sian fish­er­men from joint ven­ture fish­ing ves­sel Shin Ji leave ves­sel in Tau­ran­ga, cit­ing non pay­ment of wages, harass­ment and sub­stan­dard con­di­tions.
NZ$52,776 back pay obtained for crew and repa­tri­a­tion to coun­try of ori­gin.

2008
The Mar­itime Union took action to recov­er the unpaid wages of a Russ­ian crew aboard the South­ern Pearl after it was arrest­ed in the Ports of Auck­land.

June 2006
Burmese crew aboard Sky 75 in Timaru approach union for help.
Wages were unpaid, phys­i­cal and ver­bal abuse. 10 Indone­sian crew pre­vi­ous­ly jumped ship in Nel­son in 2005 with sim­i­lar claims.

May 2006
Joint ven­ture fish­ing ves­sel Malakhov Kur­gan involved in crew dis­pute in Lyt­tel­ton.
Crew wished to be paid New Zealand min­i­mum wage when work­ing in New Zealand waters. Threats from Ukraine based employ­ers received by crew.

March 2006
9 Indone­sian fish­er­men from Kore­an fish­ing ves­sel Mar­inui jump ship in Dunedin, claim­ing severe phys­i­cal and men­tal abuse.
Crew were being paid US$6 per day. Repa­tri­a­tion and back­pay orga­nized.

Jan­u­ary 2004
33-year old Viet­namese fish­er­men Vo Minh Que drowned near Stew­art Island after falling from the trawler Tas­nui.
Mar­itime New Zealand report­ed that poor con­di­tion of ves­sel and lack of safe­ty gear or pro­ce­dures con­tributed to his death.

Jan­u­ary 2004
Sev­er­al water­siders were lucky to escape when sev­er­al tonnes of col­laps­ing equip­ment from a ship’s crane crashed onto the wharf at South­port in Bluff on Wednes­day 14 Jan­u­ary 2004.
At around 1.30pm, a gantry crane on board the Mar­shall Island-flagged ‘Tas­man Inde­pen­dence’ had a large turntable crash onto the wharf with car­go after met­al ropes snapped.
Three water­front work­ers and a fork­lift dri­ver were ‘a cou­ple of metres away’ from where the wreck­age fell.

Novem­ber 2003
A crane on board the Hong Kong-flagged Mar­itime Friend­ship snapped while load­ing logs onboard at Port Chalmers at around 9.18pm on Fri­day 28 Novem­ber 2003.
The boom of the crane swung around onto the oper­a­tors’ cab, break­ing win­dows and bend­ing the cab’s win­dow frame.
A local water­sider oper­at­ing the crane had to dive for cov­er in the back of the cab.

Inter­na­tion­al inci­dents of note with Flag of Con­ve­nience ves­sels in recent years include the ground­ing of the Pana­man­ian flagged bulk car­ri­er “Pasha Bulk­er” in New­cas­tle, Aus­tralia, 8 June 2007.