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.